To the editor:

To my fellow Jayhawks: How much is your life worth?

Medical economists who work for the federal government are asking themselves that as they decide whether to recommend a new meningitis B vaccine for college students. Their recommendation will determine what sort of insurance coverage the shot gets.

College students are at greater risk of contracting bacterial meningitis than the general public, but it’s still a rare disease, and the economists may decide it’s not “cost-effective” to recommend vaccinating all of you against meningitis B if only a few of you are going to die of it.

They have tables that put a dollar figure on each of your lives.

I will encourage a college recommendation when I talk to federal officials in February, because when I was at Kansas University in 2004, meningitis B almost killed me and cost me parts of all four limbs. At the time, there was no shot for meningitis B. Now, thankfully, there is.

Google names like Stephanie Ross, Andrea Jaime, Sara Stelzer and Aaron Loy and you’ll see what meningitis B does to college students. Loy is the lucky one: He only lost his legs.

Then contact your congressional reps and tell them you want a broad meningitis B vaccine recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control. Your life is more than a number on a table.