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Chicken Pox Parties
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Anonymous
| A friend's daughter was recently invited to a 'chicken pox party' where the infected 'host' was encouraged to share lollipop treats with the other young guests in the hopes of infecting them too. Am I alone in finding this an odd practice? Are such parties more common than I think? And what are the advantages of deliberately infecting your child with chicken pox? |
Anonymous
| Gross. They should just get the damn chicken pox vaccine. |
Anonymous
|
Very common in my home country, as a way to prevent later infection as an adult, where it can be fatal.
I didn't know it occurred here, though. |
Anonymous
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Once upon a time, such parties were more common (there was even a South Park episode about them). But I would guess they are falling out of favor (or rather not needed) with the vaccine now available.
Chickenpox becomes a much more serious disease to get as you get older. Adults who get are more likely to run into complications that require hospitalization - or even death. So, before the vaccine, you wanted your child to pick up chickenpox as a child rather then let them go without ever getting it. "Chickenpox complications are more likely to occur in adults than in children. Despite the fact that adults account for only 5 percent of chickenpox cases per year, they account for a disproportionate number of deaths (55 percent) and hospitalizations (33 percent) compared to children." from http://chickenpox.emedtv.com/chickenpox/adult-chickenpox-p2.html |
Anonymous
| Quite frankly, if I were invited to one, we would be all over it. No one knows how long the vaccine lasts. It could be we're setting up the need for additional chickenpox boosters every 10 years or so. Which as we know, many adults don't get shots, so we're potentially setting them up for infection later in life, when the disease can be much more serious. Versus everyone catching the disease as children, as we all did, and (almost always) being immune for life. |
Anonymous
Not to mention shingles. |
Anonymous
|
Shingles is on the rise in adults, probably due to the vaccine. Continued exposure to the disease seems to strengthen the immune system against the virus, but with fewer kids having it, more adults are catching shingles.
In addition, shingles is a possible side effect of the vaccine. http://www.springerlink.com/content/g15580j564817406/ |
Anonymous
| I've had read numerous articles about how much more dangerous the chicken pox is to kids than the vaccine. Do your research before going to chicken pox parties. Ask your medical doctors about these. These chicken pox parties are probably hosted by the same people who believe the mercury in vaccines causes autism. Do your research people! |
Anonymous
Be realistic. I grew up before the chicken pox vaccine was around, and every single kid in my entire neighborhood, school, neighboring neighborhood, neighboring school ETC got chicken pox. It is not a life threatening disease. |
Anonymous
| Anecdotal information is not the same as statistics gathered from clinical research. |
Anonymous
"I've read several articles that say..." is anecdotal information. |
Anonymous
| The articles quote medical doctors who have read the research. Apologies for my lack of clarity. You got me there. Just do me a favor and ask your doctor his/her opinion. The chicken pox parties seemed to make a lot of sense to me at first too, until I read what medical doctors had found. I have never had chicken pox and that made me nervous during my pregnancy. I was actually vaccinated twice and I did not build resistence for some odd reason. This subject is near and dear to my heart. I just want people to do all of their research before engaging in an activity which seems to make sense on the outside but according to research is not a good idea. After you've educated yourself properly, go ahead and engage in chicken pox parties. Just please educate yourselves first. |
Anonymous
Yes it is. My cousin died when he was three or four years old. According to my doctor the chicken pox vaccine was mostly done to help prevent shingles later in life. |
Anonymous
There are always weird flukes to everything. Chicken pox is not a life threatening disease to almost everyone who gets it as a child. The more honest approach is to say, "for your convenience, we've developed a vaccine against a disease which for most people causes a week of intense itching. If you'd like your DC to avoid the chance of getting it, and the remote possibility of a tiny scar under their eyebrow hairs, then we offer you this new vaccine." But to now say chicken pox is life threatening is hog wash. For the vast majority of children who get it, it just isn't. |
Anonymous
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Can we please leave the anti-vaccine and pro-vaccination tedium out of every third message? Most people on this forum have done legitimate research to back up their decisions on vaccination, so it's pointless to tell someone to do her research -- chances are she already has.
The answer to the question has already been given -- chicken pox parties are held so that kids are exposed to chicken pox as a child. Death or serious, serious illness is VERY rarely seen in chicken pox (sympathies to the woman whose cousin was one of the rare exceptions). It's harder on adults than children, but it's still not likely to kill you. Chicken pox used to be a manageable childhood disease. Now that people are vaccinating kids against it, it's not out there as much naturally, leaving kids less likely to get it in childhood (and probably less likely to get it in adulthood). The tradeoff is that in order to keep it rare, and in order to give your kid protection against the "just in case" serious illness factor, you've pretty much got to accept yet another vaccine. Some people have concerns about vaccines and don't believe chicken pox poses a serious enough threat to add yet another vaccination to the already crowded schedule. Ergo, people are having chicken pox parties. If it freaks you out, don't send your kid (I wouldn't send mine). But it's not even like it's a new concept. Chicken pox parties were around when I was a kid, in the 70's. Of course, back then we called it first grade. |