Measles Parties.

[blaxshep]

Some parents in California are reportedly considering hosting “measles parties” — social gatherings where unvaccinated children can come into contact with infected kids — to build up their children’s natural resistance to the infectious disease.

Julie Schiffman, who has chosen not to vaccinate her two children, told KQED’s California Report that she was recently approached by a friend who invited her to a measles party. The friend offered to arrange a play date with a child who currently has measles. Schiffman turned her down.

Health experts are strongly opposed to intentionally infecting kids with diseases. “I think it’s totally nuts,” Dr. Anne Moscona, a flu specialist at Cornell University, told the New York Times back when reporters started asking her about swine flu parties. “This is like the Middle Ages, when people deliberately infected themselves with smallpox. It’s vigilante vaccination — you know, taking immunity into your own hands.”

Now that we’ve developed safe and effective vaccines to protect kids, doctors say it’s unnecessary to expose them to diseases in this way. After all, the whole point of vaccination is to build up kids’ immunity in a controlled and less medically risky way.

Parents Reportedly Throwing 'Measles Parties' To Infect Their Unvaccinated Kids | ThinkProgress

So you don't want to vaccinate your child because you believe it might cause him autism, for which there is no scientific evidence, but rather it makes sense to have your kid purposely infected with actual measles which is KNOWN to possibly cause death. Brilliant!

 

[americanwoman]

Some parents in California are reportedly considering hosting “measles parties” — social gatherings where unvaccinated children can come into contact with infected kids — to build up their children’s natural resistance to the infectious disease.

Julie Schiffman, who has chosen not to vaccinate her two children, told KQED’s California Report that she was recently approached by a friend who invited her to a measles party. The friend offered to arrange a play date with a child who currently has measles. Schiffman turned her down.

Health experts are strongly opposed to intentionally infecting kids with diseases. “I think it’s totally nuts,” Dr. Anne Moscona, a flu specialist at Cornell University, told the New York Times back when reporters started asking her about swine flu parties. “This is like the Middle Ages, when people deliberately infected themselves with smallpox. It’s vigilante vaccination — you know, taking immunity into your own hands.”

Now that we’ve developed safe and effective vaccines to protect kids, doctors say it’s unnecessary to expose them to diseases in this way. After all, the whole point of vaccination is to build up kids’ immunity in a controlled and less medically risky way.

Parents Reportedly Throwing 'Measles Parties' To Infect Their Unvaccinated Kids | ThinkProgress

So you don't want to vaccinate your child because you believe it might cause him autism, for which there is no scientific evidence, but rather it makes sense to have your kid purposely infected with actual measles which is KNOWN to possibly cause death. Brilliant!

-- :doh --

 

[tessaesque]

I get that your immune system is made generally stronger for having fought something off...but why would you intentionally expose your child to an illness that can cause brain swelling, blindness, and death? Wouldn't it be better to minimize their exposure and hope they can avoid it all together? Let them build their immunity on the common cold.

 

[Jetboogieman]

I get that your immune system is made generally stronger for having fought something off...but why would you intentionally expose your child to an illness that can cause brain swelling, blindness, and death? Wouldn't it be better to minimize their exposure and hope they can avoid it all together? Let them build their immunity on the common cold.

Phooey!

Back in South Africa we use to play in Sewer pipes to build up our immunity, I mean half of us died... but the other half were way stronger than before...

 

[iacardsfan]

Wow. I have been back and forth on the issue to be honest. It is hard for me to understand a government forcing a child to get vaccinations, but the idea is growing on me. The child is being put in grave danger and also endangering other children as well. These kids have no say in the matter, and they could be killed. While obviously there is always a chance for vaccinations to go bad, I feel it is generally less. With that in mind, if parents truly feel that vaccinating their child is the wrong move, they should not be forced to, but in public schools it does seem wrong to endanger the other children due to the decision of parents. Its a touchy issue, because both sides need to be accounted for, but I think most states have it right (which is contrary to my earlier beliefs.) In specific regards to this story, WOW. Just wow.

 

[Helix]

i feel bad for these kids. it must suck to have to get sick unnecessarily because your anti-vaxer parents have a profound misunderstanding of vaccines.

i was born with a significant lung defect that was corrected by surgery. it left me really prone to serious respiratory infections during my childhood, though. a cold would get into my lungs and sometimes turned into pneumonia within a couple days. the flu could certainly have killed me. i almost never got the flu, though. that was because :

Spoiler

my parents made sure that i was vaccinated against the flu every year.

i got chickenpox at age 19; the vaccine came out the next year. you can be pretty ****ing sure that i would have rather had the vaccine.

 

[CanadaJohn]

I didn't get chicken pox until my early 50s, but I come from a generation where it was standard practice to have a chicken pox party in order to have all the children infected and developing immunities so they wouldn't be afflicted later in life.

I don't know if it was "old wives tales" or what the rationale was behind it, but it was fairly common. I had not heard of it related to measles however. But measles wasn't unheard of when I was growing up and I don't recall hordes of children dying in the streets. In fact, not a single child that I knew ever died until my last year in highschool when one of my classmates committed suicide.

My position with respect to the vaccinations is consistent with my position on most things personal - it's an individual choice and parents, as primary caregivers, get to make those choices. And one of the benefits/drawbacks of free choice is you get to make some really stupid choices along the way. Not vaccinating your children is likely one of them but not necessarily the worst one I can think of.

One of the problems with antibiotics these days, as an example, is that too many people have been taking them needlessly resulting in deficient immune systems and ineffectual antibiotics. Not every malady requires a medication solution. Actually getting a cold or virus and your body naturally fighting that "invasion" is what makes your body stronger and more resistant to other and more dangerous invasions. Diseases like measles affect different people differently.