Leery of Vaccine, Some Parents Hold 'Chickenpox Parties'

Fox News ^ | 10/19/2001

[CholeraJoe]

PITTSBURGH

[Maceman]

You may laugh, but these parties were standard practice in Scarsdale NY (a very affluent suburb of NYC) when I grew up there in the 1950s.

Almost every kid (including me) got chickenpox from these parties, and I don't recall ANYBODY having long-term negative reactions from the disease. It was believed that if you didn't have chickenpox by the time you hit puberty, you faced greatly increased risk of complications from contracting the disease as an adult.

[Osinski]

Maybe your children would do better with a vaccine...no one knows for sure. Some people get mildly ill, some moderately, a small percentage get seriously ill. All our kids have had chicken pox...no biggie. I would not use the vaccine.

[tacticalogic]

I'm not sure if it's valid for chickenpox, but I can see a certain logic in this for mumps, which seems to have a much greater potential for causing serious problems in adults than in children.

[HamiltonJay]

This vaccine is POINTLESS! With a death rate of 40 people per year, most of them elderly, or with chronic auto immune diseases. Rarely does a healthy child suffer death, or permanent problems from Chicken Pox! Not only that it is only 70% effective at best..

The only reason this vaccine exists is because our society is full of single moms and 2 income families who don't want the inconvience of having a child sick for a few days.

If you have reached maturity and not gotten chicken pox you may wish to consider the vaccine. However to immunize a healthy child for this is ludicrous! THere have been 13 deaths that have been associated with the vaccine over the years.. statistically that is a much higher risk than the disease itself.

[CholeraJoe]

I suspect you had a sub-clinical case. But chickenpox as an adult is nasty. Couldn't hurt to take the vaccine.

[Sabertooth]

"And another thing, these anti vaccine people depend on "herd immunity" to protect their kids...The ultimate in selfishness.",

I agree with you as far as those who are anti-vaccine but take no other steps to make their children immune. However, whether you agree with chicken-pox parties or not, that's not true of the parents in the article.

The biggest plague gateway, bigger than the anti-vaccine crowd, will be the illegal aliens in this country. They're way to big a piece of the herd.

[CholeraJoe]

THere have been 13 deaths that have been associated with the vaccine over the years.. statistically that is a much higher risk than the disease itself.

Hogwash. From:Mandell: Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases, 5th ed., Copyright © 2000 Churchill Livingstone, Inc.

The medical importance of chickenpox should be stressed. There are approximately 250 deaths per year in the United States from this infection. For the normal child, chickenpox-associated mortality is less than 2 per 100,000 cases.

Immunocompromised children, particularly those with leukemia, have more numerous lesions, often with a hemorrhagic base. Healing takes nearly three times longer in this population. [39] These children are at greater risk for visceral complications, which occur in 30 to 50% of cases and can be fatal in as many as 15% of cases.

[jaybee]

You have hit the nail on the head. This is all about moms missing work, not protecting the kids.

After most of the kids in my childrens' Sunday School got sick, we traced it back to one child who had broken out exactly 2 weeks earlier. One of my sons got it, and I made sure that my younger son played, bathed, everything with him. Sure enough, exactly 2 weeks later, son #2 broke out. They were 3 & 4 years old, so I wanted them to get it before they started school.

The problem with chickenpox parties is that a child is the most contagious just BEFORE he breaks out & you know he has it. If you want to expose your child, have him play with someone who has been exposed, not already sick.

[FITZ]

This lady is opening herself wide open to a lawsuit. Even if the parents approve of exposing their children this way to chickenpox, there is an incubation period for the disease, during which time an unsuspecting adult or child could come in contact with the child and get the disease.

I hope not. I deliberately exposed each of my kids to chickpox so they'd have the full-blown disease instead of the mandatory vaccination ----which as we all know had many problems with the development. I believe the full-blown disease is harmless to healthy children and is more likely to give high titers of antibodies which will prevent shingles in them later. I don't believe the vaccine will give lasting immunity and there will be many cases later of shingles.

[AppyPappy]

My daughter was lucky to have it young. I've seen some pretty nasty scarring from it. My son got the vaccine.

[egarvue]

I have adamantly refused the vaccine for my children. I have no problems vaccinating my kids for mumps, rubella, etc., but I refuse chicken pox. Why? Because that vaccine is the ONLY vaccine that I see is being ADVERTISED and by its maker. The ads are everywhere in parent magazines.

If this was some serious disease, of course I would vaccinate our kids. But its chicken pox, for crying out loud. I also have to wonder about the other conditions surrounding the "100 kids killed by chicken pox every year" claim. Are these kids living in poverty or unsanitary conditions? Were they seen by medical professionals as soon as the symptoms appeared? Its details like this that they're leaving out that makes me instantly think: "scare tactic". They're trying to scare the soccer moms into ponying up for their company's product. When it comes to my kid's health, I don't mess around, and this smells just a little too fishy for me.

Our pediatrician pushed and pushed us to get it, and we kept refusing. I then later learned that she was on some research group that received money from the company to push the vaccine. Needless to say, we have a new pediatrician.

[FITZ]

These parents need to think about that. I think with the vaccine, you may not get shingles.

I don't think that's proven, if anything, I think the vaccine doesn't get the antibody titers up high enough and I'd worry about it fading later, just as measles vaccines are now known to fade and leave an older teenager susceptible to measles when the normal childhood disease protects them better.

[I still care]

We always did this before vaccination. The big worry you had about these childhood diseases was that you would catch it as an adult, rather than as a child, and it would be far more serious. We especially were concerned about the mumps, because if a man gets that after puberty he could become sterile. I knew a man who got it and ended up SO sick. When there were no vaccines for these illnesses, we always tried to get them as children. However, I also know someone who had a bad childhood illness and ended up with brain damage. (I think chickenpox or measles.)

When I was a child, my sister and brother both had mumps, but I stubbornly refused to get it. However, when the mumps vaccine came out years later, I was tested for resistance and sure enough, I had had a subclinical case - no symptoms, but I developed resistance. Now that they have vaccines, I think I would rather go the vaccine route. Both my boys have had the immunizations rather than the illnesses.

[cajungirl]

I do think the adult consequence of chicken pox is shingles at a later date. Believe me it is pretty bad. Before vaccines, I understood exposing kids to the pox so they got it when young. But now, it seems to be a little counter intuitive. Why expose your kids to shingles, why expose any vulnerable person to chicken pox. why the paranoia about vaccines. I do think sometimes people expect no reactions to things, like they want 100% effectiveness and no problem.That is not the case for vaccines but the benefit of them outweigh the cost both in money terms and in lives. Penicillin kills a few people a year, should we all die rather than take it, should we ban it? Should we take our risks with Strept throat rather than be treated. Taking the long view, I wouldn't subject anyone to the risk of shingles, it is no laughing matter.

[artios]

THere have been 13 deaths that have been associated with the vaccine over the years.. statistically that is a much higher risk than the disease itself.

Jeez - thats worse than anthrax! - "vaccine terrorists infect children!"

/Sarcasm off

[vetvetdoug]

What a novel idea!! This is Darwinian theory in its pure form. The kids that are borne from these stupid parents may not be able to reproduce because of their pediatric disease contracted at a Chicken Pox party. Those that are severely debilitated from chicken pox probably won't reproduce either (it is obvious that those that die won't reproduce). Those that live long enough to develop shingles will curse their parents for their actions and will not be able to reproduce at an older age.I hope readers can see this as sarcasm

[MayflowerMadam]

"Before the introduction of the vaccine, chickenpox killed 100 people annually..."

How many are killed every day by abortion?

[angcat]

sicky sicky sicky, they must all home school also.

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

I spent 4 months of my senior year in high school in bed, doped up on Percodan with the worst shingles my doctor had every seen. I am terrible scarred from them. I would rather have had the vaccine. My chicken pox were also horrible, I had them in my throat and on the inside of my eyelids.

[twigs]

You're right. I had chicken pox TWICE as a child and shingles at 17. It was extremely painful. I also had a series of eye problems during college that was suspected to have been caused by a herpes virus (not the sexual kind). When my own daughter got chicken pox, I asked the doctor if I could still be at risk, given my history. He said that he honestly didn't know, but that I should be on the lookout. Nothing happened. Also, abaout 100 children die each year with chicken pox.