Should a college notify students/parents when there is a staph infection in the dorm?

[seemunkee]

My daughter found out from another student and not the RA that someone on her floor has a bad staph infection. I looked on the school website and didn't see any kind of notice.

[ElizabethDC]

1. My university never informs us of those kinds of things

we only get notified about robberies and other crimes (we live in DC, so they happen a lot).

[seemunkee]

2. GW, Georgetown, or CU?

[DarkTirade]

3. If they don't I see a huge opening for a lawsuit.

So it would probably be in their best self-interest to do so.

[driver8]

4. When I was in college, a girl in my dorm died from TB!!

They didn't tell our parents a thing!

(They did make us all get TB tests, however.)

[ThomCat]

5. Universities routinely cover up bad news.

If someone gets raped in a dorm, they'll make sure nobody ever hears about it. If muggings are happening on campus, they'll beef-up patrols but deny there's a problem. Unless a problem is so blatant and public that it can't be ignored, they'll cover it up.

[seemunkee]

6. Talked to the VP of Student affairs this AM

The student is being treated at home and it is not MRSA. All the bathrooms and that students room have been disinfected. The school put up notices in the dorm but my daughter has a long day on Thursdays and didn't get back to her room until 9:30 last night.

[LeftyMom]

7. Students yes, parents no

Presumably college students are adults and can be trusted to wash their hands and dress their scrapes appropriately.

And one nasty infection in however many thousand people is hardly an outbreak, so as long as appropriate precautions were taken there's really no need to compromise the student's privacy or whip the parents up into a tizzy.