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Merged Pox Party! / Chicken pox lollipops

commandlinegamer

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commandlinegamer
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No, it's not a new political movement.

http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2011/10/31/pox-parties-and-bioterrorism/

Which links to a CBS investigation

http://www.kpho.com/story/15896021/cbs-5-investigates-mail-order-diseases

Apparently, some parents are intentionally setting up events for children to swap childhood diseases, such as chicken pox, with a view to them developing natural immunity.

And it gets better.

Infected child-friendly items like lollipops are being mailed between adults for the same purpose.

http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2011/10/31/pox-parties-and-bioterrorism/

I know that current thinking in some quarters is that kids are too clean, they need to be exposed to a bit of dirt, etc, but what the hell?!?

Noted in the comments underneath the blog posting that these parties may not be a new phenomenon, existing before vaccines became available.
 
commandlinegamer said:
No, it's not a new political movement.

http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2011/10/31/pox-parties-and-bioterrorism/

Which links to a CBS investigation

http://www.kpho.com/story/15896021/cbs-5-investigates-mail-order-diseases

Apparently, some parents are intentionally setting up events for children to swap childhood diseases, such as chicken pox, with a view to them developing natural immunity.

And it gets better.

Infected child-friendly items like lollipops are being mailed between adults for the same purpose.

http://mikethemadbiologist.com/2011/10/31/pox-parties-and-bioterrorism/

I know that current thinking in some quarters is that kids are too clean, they need to be exposed to a bit of dirt, etc, but what the hell?!?

Noted in the comments underneath the blog posting that these parties may not be a new phenomenon, existing before vaccines became available.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but this sort of thing is old news ...

For example, does anyone else recall the 'pox party' that was shown on South Park several years ago?
 
I don't like the sound of infected lollies being posted around (YUCK!) but this was a normal part of my generations childhood. I had chickenpox around 6 or 7 and remember asking my mother whether my birthday had come early - BIG party, about 20 kids, mostly with their fathers in tow (preggered ladies a no-no).

This was in the 70s btw.
 
It made a bit of sense before the vaccine was invented, in 1995. Getting chicken pox as a kid was much better than as an adult. That's how I got it, and it was treated with a few weeks of oatmeal baths.

But now it's just wrong.
 
the depressing thing is that it's thought to be less "harmful" than vaccination by these idiots.
 
Skepticemea said:
I don't like the sound of infected lollies being posted around (YUCK!) but this was a normal part of my generations childhood. I had chickenpox around 6 or 7 and remember asking my mother whether my birthday had come early - BIG party, about 20 kids, mostly with their fathers in tow (preggered ladies a no-no).

This was in the 70s btw.
Click to expand...

Similar here. When my older brother got chicken pox my mother told me to hug him and hang out with him so I would also catch it. I guess the idea was its better to catch it as a kid than as an adult, so go ahead and get it out of the way?
 
I remember them from my childhood, though I never went to one. I got chicken pox, and remember it, but Mom said I picked it up from some kid at the after-school day-care I went to.

In fact, my kids picked it up as toddlers from their Piaget day-care center...wouldn't both of those incidents be something of an informal pox-party? Don't mistake me for saying I'm in favor of them--if it's dangerous, then no, I'm not normally in favor of putting children at unnecessary risk. I'm just musing on whether there's a big difference between getting infected informally in a day-care group, or a school classroom, and getting infected formally at a party.

I suppose you're all right about it being an unnecessary risk in light of the vaccine, but would it be thought a more acceptable risk before that existed? According to the Wiki article, there were rubella parties and flu parties, too, in the past. I'd never heard of those.

I know there's a risk to anyone who gets these diseases, but what makes the party idea so much riskier, if there's no vaccine?
 
I was a kid in the 80s, before the vaccine. Although my parents didn't do this, I had quite a few friends whose parents did do this, for the reasons stated above; it's safer to hae chicken pox when you're younger than older. The friends I had knew in advance what was going on, they were told they were being intentionally infected, but I can't say how common it is for kids to be fully informed. Besides, they were really young anyways, so even being informed, I don't know how much they understood.

I think it's understandable before the vaccine, but there's no excuse for it now.
 
Crossbow said:
Sorry, but this sort of thing is old news ...

For example, does anyone else recall the 'pox party' that was shown on South Park several years ago?
Click to expand...

Yes, and the kids then hired an infected hooker to give all of their parents herpes.
Maybe the kids in real life who are being subjected to these pox parties will see the episode.
 
Chickenpox is a relatively minor inconvenience as a child. Once you have it, though, the virus doesn't really leave. It becomes dormant and can develop into shingles (herpes zoster). Shingles is no picnic. The alternative, a simple vaccination, is much better than a "Pox Party."
 
I was 6 months old when I got it from my older brothers. I'm sure it wasn't a picnic for my mom dealing with the three of us (6 months, 4 years and 5 years) having chicken pox pretty much all at once like that. My sister wasn't around yet, so she didn't get the chicken pox until she was a young adult around 1990.
My daughter will hopefully never have to deal with even what are considered 'innocent' childhood diseases, since we've vaccinated her for everything out there, even the non-mandatory stuff like meningitis.
If we can end any other disease like small pox with the use of vaccinations (and yes, I know other measures helped with eradicating small pox), we should do it.
 
My mother had four of us with chicken pox at once, aged six to a few months (I was four years old and ended up packed in ice in the bathtub at one point). And she was pregnant with number five. My dad headed for the hills since he'd never had them and needed to be able to keep working. Mom developed a single line of pox across her preggers belly (she'd never had them, either). My baby brother was born okay, thankfully. He never got chicken pox. However, he did get shingles a few years ago. Maybe he was infected in utero?

ETA:

Sorry; forgot to include the point of the story. Remember the "packed in ice" part above. And I've got permanent scars on my face and legs. I could easily have lost my little brother because my mother got them while pregnant. No, I don't think chicken-pox parties are a good idea. And I think "parties" for the more dangerous vaccine-preventable illnesses (like rubella, measles, or mumps) are just plain child abuse. A shot in the arm beats a coffin any day.
 
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slingblade said:
I know there's a risk to anyone who gets these diseases, but what makes the party idea so much riskier, if there's no vaccine?
Click to expand...

I'd say it made quite a bit of sense before the vaccine, not only because it's very mild in children but because you would be prepared for it. It was incredibly common and extremely contagious but not very dangerous, you may as well deliberately contract it at a time when you're ready to deal with it, you know what you have, and you can avoid spreading it to high risk groups as it is contagious before it was apparent you had the virus. Very recently my wife had shingles emerge while she was breast feeding our son, and he contracted chickenpox before we knew what she had.

Of course these days the vaccine is so obviously the way to go if possible. Chickenpox is generally not that big of a deal either, but it sucks to have so work smarter not harder.
 
Swagomatic said:
Chickenpox is a relatively minor inconvenience as a child. Once you have it, though, the virus doesn't really leave. It becomes dormant and can develop into shingles (herpes zoster). Shingles is no picnic. The alternative, a simple vaccination, is much better than a "Pox Party."
Click to expand...

You can still get shingles from the vaccine also. But not dealing with chicken pox and having the risk of shingles is better than having the same risk but also going through the full blown virus.
 
Skepticemea said:
I don't like the sound of infected lollies being posted around (YUCK!) but this was a normal part of my generations childhood. I had chickenpox around 6 or 7 and remember asking my mother whether my birthday had come early - BIG party, about 20 kids, mostly with their fathers in tow (preggered ladies a no-no).

This was in the 70s btw.
Click to expand...


Same here. At the tail end of the Sixties.

My Dad was getting his doctorate at Syracuse, and we were living in the married grad student ghetto. Herds of young 'uns running loose everywhere.

The disease parties were regular events, and all the moms came around with all the kids, whether they needed to or not.

I had chicken pox, measles, and mumps before I went to first grade.
 
Lamuella said:
the depressing thing is that it's thought to be less "harmful" than vaccination by these idiots.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't get it.

With the vaccine, there is a chance that there will be redness at injection for maybe a day, with maybe a 1 in a million chance of a serious complication.

With the disease, you are guaranteed to have a week, maybe two, of miserable kid, quarantined at home (you wouldn't deliberately take them out into public into a non-consenting crowd, right?) with a 1 in maybe 10 000 chance of serious complication.

Now, it would be one thing to say, "I'm willing to not get the vaccine and take the risk, hoping that I among the lucky who won't catch the disease." People do this with measles vaccine, for example. I can't stand the attitude, but it is one thing.

It is completely another to after not getting the vaccine, to deliberate expose your child to the disease and force them to go through it. How is that better than the vaccine?

FWIW, when the MonkeyBoy got his chicken pox vaccine last month, he didn't even have the soreness around the injection site for a day. At least, there was no sign of it after an hour. Oh, that is SO much worse than the chicken pox...
 
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