MEDICINE: The causes regarding the recent deaths due to meningococcal infection are increasingly cloudy, but at least prevention is being advocated.
By Isabel De La Garza, Senior Writer
The recent deaths of West Hollywood men in their 30s due to meningitis has become an extremely alarming issue in the medical community. Given that the most recent of these cases, Brett Shaad, was present at the White Party, a dance party for male homosexuals in Palm Springs held near the end of March, West Hollywood City Councilman John Duran has urged any attendees of the White Party who have symptoms such as a stiff neck, fever, headache, rash or sickly feelings, to “go see their physician immediately.” As the meningitis bacteria passes from person to person through close physical contact, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation has begun to offer free vaccines for Meningitis as New York began to do after the deaths of seven homosexual males due to meningitis in 2012.
So far, three deaths in Southern California have been reported: Brett Shaad, a 33-year-old lawyer, a 30 year old graduate student at San Diego University and Rjay Spoon, an unnamed 30-year-old homosexual man, whose occupation has not been stated. In all cases, the doctors could not help the patients before the bacterial infection caused inflammation of the brain lining and spinal cord tissue, resulting in coma, brain death and eventually complete death in the span of about a week after hospitalization.
There is, however, something strange about one of these cases. Shaad was diagnosed with meningitis two days prior to slipping into his coma and died a few days later when his family took him off life support. Spoon, however, was not actually diagnosed with meningitis until two days after his death. Casey Hayden, Spoon’s partner, awoke to Spoon vomiting one night. He subsequently took Spoon to the hospital where doctors first said it was a “drug overdose” and “criticized our [Spoon’s and Hayden’s] relationship.” Later they thought it was “extremely advanced HIV,” but Spoon was HIV-negative. Hayden was distraught by the loss of his partner because that “everyone [was] saying he would be okay,” he did not know “what was wrong” and “no one [had] an explanation” until after Spoon had passed.
Eventually, the CDC figured out the cause of Spoon’s death in 2012 and, because of the string of seven similar cases of meningitis deaths in New York, vaccinated and questioned Hayden to ascertain whether he and/or Spoon had been in contact with anyone from New York or whether they had taken a trip to New York. Hayden said that they had no contact with anyone from New York and they had not visited the state. The CDC went on to report that there were 13 cases of meningitis in the U.S. in 2012 but did not mention the deaths of Rjay Spoon or the graduate student in its death count.
The treatment of Hayden and Spoon at the hospital and by the CDC bring up several questions. Why had the hospital not checked Spoon’s records? Hayden could have obviously told the hospital that his partner was not a drug user and was HIV-negative, and probably did. Yet, they “criticized” the relationship between the two men and accused one of drug abuse, and later of having HIV. Why is it that only the CDC was able to conclude that Spoon had died of meningitis rather than complications resulting from HIV or drug use? And why did the CDC fail to report the death of not one but two meningitis victims in 2012? Although the deaths occurred later on in the year, the CDC reports are generally very specific and accurate even until the end of the year, especially when it comes to extremely life-threatening diseases.
The most important questions are why is all of this only coming to light now, and why is it that the deaths are being tied back to the White Party? Had the deaths in 2012 been reported, vaccinations for the disease may have started much earlier and the death of Shaad may have been prevented. Additionally, Shaad may not have contracted the disease from anyone at the White Party as he is the only Southern California case who was alive at the time the White Party was held. The connection that officials are currently trying to draw between the event and the deaths makes no sense, but at least they are now working to make sure that they can prevent as many future deaths as possible. As Duran said, “why not just start [vaccinating] now? So we don’t have to get seven deaths to get there.”