This just in from NPR: It seems that some parents are organizing Chicken Pox Parties, at which they expose their kids to another child who has the disease. They do this because they believe that actually suffering through the disease will give their children better immunity than the vaccine will.
I realize that chicken pox isn’t an especially dangerous disease, but why would anyone want to put their kid through that? Besides, the parties involve sharing sippy cups, chewing gum(!), and so on. Who knows what else besides the pox is being passed around?
I think that in the 19th century and for a good part of the 20th - using one sick child to infect others was very common. It is just chickenpox after all.
It isn’t particularly dangerous for children, but it’s extremely dangerous for adults. Better for them to get it now that 30 years in the future.
How well does the vaccine work? I recall reading that it only offers protection for 10 years and isn’t a lifetime solution either. Is that the case or am I misremembering?
I don’t see anything particularly wrong with exposing your children to chicken pox so that they develop immunity as an adult, when their chances of complications are much higher. However, parents should be aware of the risks. Some kids (and adults) still die from the disease. And, of course, you should never expose a kid whose immune system is already compromised.
But aside from that, I don’t see it as inherently wrong.
My daughters got the vaccine. One daughter still caught the disease a year or so later, but it was an extremely mild case. The jury is still out on how effective the vaccine is.
Chickenpox in adults is reasonable deadly. Given that experience is nearly a sure way to make sure that doesn’t happen, and the vaccine may not be, it seems reasonable.
I don’t think the vaccine works all that well. Several kindergarteners and first graders in our district got it this year (including one bad case) and the vaccine is required in our state. Still I wouldn’t feel comfortable exposing my son to illness on purpose.
As others have said getting chicken pox as a kid is no big deal, getting it as an adult is a big deal and can cause severe problems. I got chicken pox as a kid and while I didn’t feel too great, I was back to normal within a few days. I wound up giving it to my mom who had never been exposed and she was basically incapacitated for a week.
So chicken pox parties aren’t necessarily a bad idea and in days of yore were actually quite common (same thing with mumps, no?).
Even though the practice has been around forever, I can’t agree with it, simply because it puts someone at an unnecessary risk. My little brother almost died from chickenpox, so I’m somewhat biased.
When I got chicken pox as a kid (pre-vaccine), my mom threw a Chicken Pox Party. Sort of. We didn’t do anything gross like share cups, but the neighbor moms sent their kids over to play with me. Worked pretty well, too. We all got it at the same time (summer after kindergarten), nobody got very sick, and we all got immunity. Also, the cool thing was that the sick kids didn’t miss out on summer fun with their friends. We all ran around terrorizing the neighborhood as usual.
My two cousins got it as teenagers. They were extremely sick for nearly a month, and they have scars on their faces. Mom didn’t want us to go through that.
