I’d rather suck on a lollipop licked by a stranger with chicken pox than get the vaccine, because vaccines aren’t safe
If you think my headline is a joke, it isn’t. Many parents, afraid of vaccines such as the Varicella (Chicken Pox) vaccine are opting to take their children to Chicken Pox Parties so they can naturally contract the virus and avoid the shot mandated for school entry.
While I’m not totally opposed to the idea of doing this, there are risks involved in getting the chicken pox. You may remember it as this harmless right of passage that all children went through, which I have, but some people had a different experience with severe infections and babies who suffered greatly with adverse side-effects of catching it at such a young age.
In addition to these Pox Parties, however, there are now parents trying to sell & ship pre-licked lollipops, used Q-tips and saliva from their chicken pox infected children.
Another parent is seeking someone to ship something containing the measles so that she can infect her children naturally, allowing them to get the disease without getting vaccinated.
First of all, let me just say – Are you people out of your friggin minds?! Seriously? You would trust a stranger to send you chicken pox spit from their kids (who may also have other things, you know, like Hepatitis), but you don’t trust a sterile, lab tested vaccine?
The anti-vaccine movement has reached a whole new level of crazy with this one. You will trust someone you met in a Facebook group, but not your child’s doctor or the CDC. This baffles me. Even as someone who was once anti-vax / on the fence about vaccines, this is the nuttiest garbage I have read so far about the anti-vaccine movement.
Second of all, shipping diseases and viruses is ILLEGAL and DANGEROUS, for multiple reasons. First, you can move an outbreak from one end of the country to the other, exposing countless individuals who didn’t choose to be exposed to the disease or virus (as you have). While you may think these diseases are harmless, they have potentially life threatening results for some people. These people choose to vaccinate, because they don’t want the disease, but you aren’t giving them a choice by having it mailed and purposely infecting your children with a disease and exposing your neighbors.
It’s illegal. If you are caught shipping viruses and diseases, you can spend up to 20 years in prison. They put the shipping of Chicken Pox and Measles on par with shipping Anthrax.
I don’t know how many times I can say that this is complete and utter craziness before I’ve said it enough times. But here’s some more food for thought.
What if the child with Chicken Pox or Measles contracted Pertussis and the parents didn’t yet know it. This is assuming these are honest people sending you disease covered lollipops (wait, that makes no sense…no honest person would even think of doing such a thing…what was I thinking?). Your child licks the lollipop and now has Pertussis, or Whooping Cough. Not knowing this, you invite your neighbors kids over for a chicken pox party. An asthmatic child contracts the chicken pox and pertussis while in your home. The asthmatic child becomes very ill, gets hospitalized, and dies. A pertussis outbreak occurs in your area, an outbreak that you brought into your neighborhood. Many are hospitalized, permanently injured or killed by this horrendous disease. And it’s all your fault.
If you would even consider doing something like this, I don’t want to know you. Plain and simple.
This is pure insanity.
Question: What is your opinion of parents willing to infect their children with a disease or virus by allowing their child to lick a lollipop sent by a stranger claiming that it was licked by another child with the “desired” disease?
Related articles
- Parents Declare Biological War On Own Children With Mail-Order Chicken Pox [Parenting] (jezebel.com)
- Vaccine Refusal? Hello Measles! (drrubinblog.com)
- Is chicken pox life-threatening if you get it as an adult? (zocdoc.com)
Comments
Leave a Reply
<div align="center"><a href="http://www.alwayssick.com" title="Always Sick Chick" target="_blank"><img src="http://alwayssick.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/alwayssickchick-button.jpg" alt="Always Sick Chick" style="border:none;" /></a></div>
There are some vaccines that have purpose and I believe chicken pox and measles are 2 of them. I think parents have to really weigh the risk factors against the benefits, but what I just read here blows my mind. I agree with you, no one should take for granted that something like that for sale on the internet is safe – you pointed out severala of the potential hazzards there. I personally am opposed to over-vaccinating for both people and our pets as I feel it is generally abused by health care professionals, especially when they are thrown into 1 shot and the immune system receives an onslaught of several diseases all at once, but these pox parties and the like are insane.
I don’t mind pox parties so much, actually. It was the kind of thing that parents did when I was a kid and when my parents were kids. They would find out that a friend had the chicken pox, and so all the kids who didn’t have it yet went to their house so they could get it while they’re young. Getting chicken pox as an adult is quite severe, so parents were really adamant about their kids getting it. The vaccine, when it was first introduced, wasn’t highly trusted or considered effective, so many parents continued to do this. The vaccine now doesn’t provide lifelong immunity, so many parents would still rather have their kids get the chicken pox than the vaccine so they have lifelong immunity without the need for a booster shot. I completely understand such a desire, especially since most people get the chicken pox and have no serious issues with it. However, some do – serious infections on the skin, or children who are too young to get it (under age 1), etc… The vaccine helps with those rare situations.
A chicken pox party is one thing, but purchasing a licked lollipop from a stranger on the Internet in the hopes that your child will contract the chicken pox is quite another and very reckless. I would say that anyone who does this should be arrested for shipping viruses, and anyone willing to do this to their children ought to be psych evaluated and the children removed from their custody due to child endangerment. I’m not one to support taking someone’s kids away, especially when the parent is only trying to do what is best for their child, but this is dangerous and potentially deadly.
Disclaimer – I do not support removing children from homes where the parents are anti-vax. That is a personal decision, and I believe every parent has the right to choose whether or not to vaccinate their children.