At a cost of about $100 per vaccine, a Centers for Disease Control panel is recommending all college freshmen who live in dormitories be vaccinated for meningitis. Further, they suggest all 11- to 12-year-olds also be vaccinated.

Cost aside, we think this is a good idea.

The CDC isn’t considering saving money with the recommendation, but rather what they are supposed to do &045; save lives.

Given that meningitis is all too often fatal, and is highly contagious to boot, the move to vaccinate students who are living together, and frequently unconcerned about spreading germs, is a reasonable one.

Mention meningitis and parents quake in fear.

Ask a parent whose child has been diagnosed with this dreaded illness, the cost of a vaccine would have been a welcome expense.

Among children who survive the illness, many have long-term adverse effects from the disease, such as hearing loss.

One reason the CDC panel is recommending the vaccine is because the new version will last for more than eight years and will prevent people from being carriers of the bacteria; the old vaccine was effective for only three to five years and didn’t prevent a person from being a carrier.

A doctor with Mayo Clinic in Rochester said mention of meningitis closes schools. He went on to say that if the illness were a minor one, the cost would outweigh the value of vaccinating so many children.

The cost of the vaccine is far less than burying a child, or the hospital bill for treatment of this illness. We are hard-pressed to come up with a reason children shouldn’t be vaccinated against this &uot;morbid illness.&uot;