Holy CRAP!! Who resurrected THIS thread??
Meningitis is most often NOT bacterial. When it's bacterial, it's most often in KIDS. When it's in kids, it's most often due to a bug called Meningococcus. In adults, there would very likely be some sort of predisposing factor such as a disease state or recent invasive procedure... but anything's possible. The bottom line is that I can't guess what the real infectious agent is, and based on that, what the risk to kids might involve.
Most people who are exposed to Meningococcus never actually have any kind of illness. Probably less than half actually come down with anything. Even less frequent is a serious illness such as meningitis or purpura fulminans and sepsis. Most kids that get some sort of illness as a result of meningococcus will have a fever and a sore throat. A more ominous finding would be a systemic rash. A kid that gets really sick is typically REALLY obvious. No parent is going to miss this one.
Meningococcemia is typically wiped out with the first dose in a course of penicillin. A variety of more aggressive antibiotics are also effective.
If anyone has a sick kid in that class over the next week or so, I'm going to suggest that they be evaluated by a pediatrician immediately. This is just as much for the parent as for the kid. Testing for Meningococcal exposure is simple and accurate. Any parent of a sick kid in that class will sleep better after a negative test.
.... Oh, and on the "boob tube" topic, it's most definitely about stupidity. TV watching is scientifically proven to cause late onset mental retardation in otherwise previously healthy adults. I'm pretty sure I learned this on the discovery channel, but it may have been on an episode of the Simpsons, or Family Guy.
Reality TV shows are now shown to do this at an accelerated rate. This has been known for 3 decades, since the term "boob tube" was first coined in the mid 70's, but the information has been supressed by the media industry which controls the dissemination of news.
My dad called it the "idiot box". The joke's on him, though, siince I have a flat panel.
Doesn't anyone have any questions worth asking anymore??
After a while I though to myself, "Where did this name come from, why boob tube??" I've asked a few people and they didn't have any answers 
Linear Mode
