BRIEF: Student Health gets $150,000 grant

Student Health practicioner Victor Waters, who co-sponsored the grant application, said that the Centers for Disease Control this month officially approved the funding to distribute the vaccine at four college campuses, including the University, for two years. Student Health Director MarJeanne Collins said the approval of the grant provided "a wonderful opportunity for students." Hepatitis-B is a sexually transmitted disease which, if undetected, can cause cancer of the liver and death. Waters said an important part of the grant is to study how to best publicize vaccines and other medical breakthroughs to the general public by observing how University students react to the opportunity to get the inexpensive Hepatitis-B vaccine. "We are on the forefront of understanding how to distribute this vaccine, proliferate this knowledge and minimize the scare." said Waters. "We have no AIDS vaccine yet, but this is the first [vaccine for a sexually transmitted disease] we have that is very good. It will provide a model for future vaccines." Waters said that the vaccine, which would ordinarily cost about $150, will now be available for $25 at Student Health. -- Matthew Selman

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