Am I the only one who thinks it is just plain wrong for parents to purposely infect their children with chicken pox?
I stumbled across an article Monday about parents who are too fearful to vaccinate their kids against the disease so they are using Facebook to get in touch with other parents whose children are contagious, asking the parents for spit or other items from their infected children. Then they use the items to expose their children.
So these parents don’t want to give their children a shot that will produce minimal effects on their little ones, but they are willing to accept a spit-laden chicken pox-infested package in the mail in order to expose their child to the disease?
Have these parents had chicken pox? It’s a miserable disease. When I had it I laid around on the couch for days in a Hawaiian moo moo dousing my skin with soothing anti-itch lotion. I couldn’t help scratching, so my bumps turned into scab-topped sores. It was horrible.
I can’t imagine subjecting my children to that.
According to the article I read, one of the Facebook posts from Nashville was selling pox-infested suckers, spit and Q-tips for $50. Seriously? How low can you go? You are willing to sell your child’s germs?
I’ve heard of parents having “pox parties” where they expose their children face-to-face with other chicken pox-infected kids. The pox parties are bad enough. It’s extremely unsettling that they are willing to accept random specimens from strangers in order to make their kids experience the disease.
Not to mention the fact that it is a federal crime to send diseases or viruses across state lines.
I know some people are nervous about vaccinations. But recent reports dispute the arguments that childhood vaccinations have been linked to autism. I even heard a news story lately that the researcher who came out with early discoveries linking vaccinations to autism falsified his information.
I can’t imagine anything worse than knowing I made my child sick by buying someone else’s disease. Come on people.
Here’s a link to the article I read this week about sharing chicken pox germs:
* Vaccine-wary parents warned against sending ‘chicken pox lollipops’ through the mail
Here’s a link to an article about research regarding vaccinations and autism:
* Medical journal: Study linking autism, vaccines is ‘elaborate fraud’
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/06/autism.vaccines/index.html
Boogers on the Wall 
Nov 10, 2011 @ 15:04:18
Natalie,
I agree with you. I never had the chicken pox when I was kid, I still haven’t had them. I’ve had the vaccine for chicken pox a few times and nothing has happened to me. I think its a perfectly safe vaccination. I have a neighbor who doesn’t get her kids vaccinations and her kids are always sick. She has a 19 year old that has the mind of a 16 year old. All her kids have the mind compacity (sp?) of a few years younger then what they really are.
Nov 11, 2011 @ 15:21:49
I feel bad for children whose parents never let them get vaccinated. I think we all have to realize that there is always a possibility that something could happen after a vaccination, but I think it’s highly unlikely.
Nov 10, 2011 @ 20:31:03
My mom and I were just talking about this yesterday. I had a friend block me on facebook because I was refuting her claims that there was mercury in vaccines. She was basing her decision not to vaccinate off of research done in 2002 (they’ve been removing mercury from vaccines since 2001) by the dr. who did not do a fully unbiased study on Autism and a chiropractor in Utah.
I can understand people choosing not to vaccinate when they have done research and have a family history of some things that could be triggered by vaccinations and I’m fine with people’s choices.
But deciding not to get the vaccine and then trying to get your kid sick with chicken pox when they may not otherwise get is just dumb. If they happen to get it, great, but don’t purposely make them sick just to “get it over with”.
Nov 11, 2011 @ 15:19:41
I agree. If they happen to get the disease, they happen to get it but why subject them to it if there is a chance they may never encounter it?
Nov 11, 2011 @ 09:22:20
Normally I’m all for vaccinations, but for the chicken pox one I’m torn. Really, I should just get over it – all my kids have gotten it (the vaccine) already. I was so miserable with my chicken pox that I never want my kids to go through that, but now I’ve heard (and hopefully it’s just that – hearsay) that people who get the vaccine are more likely later in life to get shingles, and that it’ll be worse than cases of shingles where the person has already had real chicken pox once. I really hope that’s not the case.
I also remember that when we were little it was common for someone with chicken pox to get lots of visitors in the hopes of “getting it over with early”, since that is one disease that seems to get worse, not better, with age. Now, since there is a vaccine against it, I’m sure it’s not a very common malady anymore, so if a parent doesn’t want to get their child vaccinated against it I’m sure it’s getting harder and harder for them to get their child exposed “naturally”. Apparently they are getting more and more desperate. Sad. I’d like to just make it go the way of small pox, and they did that with vaccines.
Nov 11, 2011 @ 15:18:39
I understand that some people may have some reservations about vaccinations. But shouldn’t they also have some major reservations about receiving and then using someone else’s germs to infect their child with the disease? I’m with you. I hope some day the disease vanishes. 🙂