Our pediatritian wouldn’t reccommend the vaccine unless the children reached the age of twelve without catching the disease. He felt, and I agreed, that it was too much of a risk to be immune until the age of 20 or 30 and then catch it. When my friend’s kids got it I made sure they played together a lot. Sharing cups and gum though is way over the edge.
OK, I need someone with a bigger brain to explain this to me. I’m gonna try some logic, so stand back in case I break something.
Back in the olden days, chicken pox was a fairly common childhood disease, right? I know that some children who got it had life-threatening or even life-ending cases, but that was not the norm, right? So if a kid got it and didn’t have a life-threatening case, he was generally immune forever after, because he’d likely be exposed to the virus again from other kids, and each time his immune system would go “Hey! We’ve had this before! Get that stuff we used to kill it last time!” (Or something of that sort). So now we’re vaccinating kids against it early, and so there’s not as many chickem pox bugs going around as there were, and when the virus DOES get through, the body’s immune system is unprepared for it and goes haywire? Or maybe stronger strains of the virus?
If my logic isn’t completely fucked up, I’d be taking my kid to a chicken pox party, too.
(disclaimer - my kid already had it. I never had it, even though I was exposed both accidentally and deliberately MANY times.)
I saw something that said it has been used in Japan for about 20 years.
Can’t figure out what the hell happened to my posts above. I wrote the “second” one first, but it wouldn’t submit. Then I corrected it because I remembered getting it a third time (which didn’t really count, very mild) and submitted…and somehow both posts showed up. With the second one in front of the first. Weird.
The chicken pox party is all about herd immunity, which, aside from the bovine inferences, is a good thing.
I’ve read an article/saw a documentary (its been a while), that had as its premise the idea that the polio epidemic was due largely to the fact that we no longer had immunity as a group from polio. Polio is pretty common and the way it used to work is that one generation would pass the immunity to the next, i.e. by exposing the younger generation (kids) to a weakened form of polio. But, when we started showering all the time and became clean freaks, that chain was broken and kids that had not received immunity were stricken in relatively large numbers.
In short, nature’s rather rough way of working these things out was more akin to pox parties than to vaccination.
CJ
That’s what I was thinking - (I remember in one of the “Great Brain” books (set at the turn of the century), the parents did it with mumps or measles or something far more serious than chicken pox)
I wanted to mention this as well. IIRC, it was the mumps in the book.
I’d never been to a chicken pox party, myself, but when my sister picked it up from her friend I was around her enough to get it. And I suspect my parents were just as glad I caught it then.
Certainly, however, I’d heard of chickenpox (and other disease) parties for ages. Perhaps the best introduction I’d seen to the idea was in John D. Fitzgerald’s Great Brain books. Measles, as well, was another disease which was felt to be better gotten as young as possible, and all at once.
Damn. Too late.
My husband had shingles last year, shortly after he’d turned 24. People giggled about it, saying it was an “old man’s disease”. He had never had the chicken pox as a child. He had to take a couple of weeks off of work, and I waited on him hand and foot - he spent most of the time on the sofa, sleeping, with an awful fever and no appetite. I just kept bringing him water and occasionally some soup. I had no worries being around him, since I’d had chicken pox as a child (my experience with it is barely memorable, I had to call my mother and ask if I’d had it). My husband had to stay away from his father (who isn’t, incidentally, his biological father, so it’s not a genetic thing in this case) who also never had chicken pox. His father is in his early 50s. Naturally, he avoided us both like… er… like a pox 
I’m not sure what I’ll with my own kids one day. If they don’t get it before starting school, however, I probably wouldn’t worry too much about exposing them to contagious friends of theirs. I’m not sure that I’d organise a party… I have a feeling we’ll have many cousins and neighbours and friends for them to play with at that age, and it will spread to them all, as it often does. I suppose if it came down to it, and someone invited me to bring my child to a big old pox party, I wouldn’t turn it down, depending heavily on circumstances (is my child sick already? Immune system okay? Who else will be there? How many will be there? Do any of the children have any other diseases we should be noting? etc).
I’ll be sure to make my kid feel my authority and general god-like power: “A pox on you if you don’t finish your vegetables!” (I kid I kid!)
Forgive me if I’m confused but doesn’t the vaccine make cases milder? So if you’re going to do this wouldn’t you first vaccinate your children? This way if they come down with the pox they’ll have a milder case? 
Never heard of CPParties myself, and I have to say the idea sounds like ick – intentionally exposing your kids to catch illnesses?
What’s wrong with the vaccine, anyway, other than tin-foil-hat paranoia?
rjung, there are some legitimate concerns about the longevity of the protection offered by the vaccine.
And prior to the vaccine, what would you have done, esp with something like measles, mumps or chicken pox, where the older a person is when first exposed to the disease the more serious the run of the disease would be?
Purposely exposing your children to the chickenpox is insanely irresponsible. You are never “cured” of herpes viruses like chickenpox, your immune system is just keeping it in check while it hides in your nervous system. Reduced immunity, which can be caused by stress, can allow it to break out and cause a very painful attack of shingles. Get your kids immunized and get a booster later.
Jesus fucking Christ, the lengths people will go to to avoid paying for a fucking shot.
http://www.hhmi.org/cgi-bin/askascientist/highlight.pl?kw=&file=answers%2Fimmunology%2Fans_021.html
Has nothing to do with avoiding paying for a shot, dropzone. As has previously been mentioned, these Chicken Pox parties have been going on for a long time. The shot’s only been around for 20 years or so. I agree with the sentiment that it’s a stupid thing to do to your kid though. And I thought Kyle and Stan and Cartman were perfectly justified in their revenge.
The shots are free here. I’m totally unconvinced that the shots offer lifelong immunity though. I just know too many kids who caught chickenpox after being immunised.
My younger kid caught them last year. My older one still hasn’t had them and I’m considering doing the vaccine as he’s getting older and the consequences of catching them are more serious.
Sorry, I just realized that it seems I’m in favor of disease parties, now that a vaccine is available. I’m not.
I do believe that they had been a useful practice prior to such vaccines being available - but that’s not the same as endorsing the practice, now. Alas, with the tinfoil-hat crowd, this is likely to continue, because they don’t trust the vaccines.
Even if the immunity is only good for N years, a quick shot every N years beats exposure and lifetime infection, IMO.
Exposing healthy kids to Chicken Pox is not necessarily a bad idea!! It is generally not a life-or health-threatening illness for most children (tho rarely bad outcomes happen). It can be a much more devastating disease for adults.
When elfbabe and her sib were young, the vaccine wasn’t available, so I made damn sure they got exposed, when it came at a relatively convenient time. I was happy when it took, and they got the illness.
The jury is still out as to whether the vaccine really will give adequate protection in adulthood. As has already been pointed out, lack of frequent exposure doesn’t give continuing stimulus to forming the Herpes Zoster antibodies. Therefore it will not surprise me much if we spare our children an uncomfortable, nuisance illness only to have them get devastated by it later in their adult life.
It may be that booster shots will need to be given thruout one’s lifetime to preserve immunity. And if that’s the case, the cost-effectiveness of the whole Chicken Pox vaccine idea may be called into question.
I’m not sure what I’d do with elfbabe now if I had to choose between a case of the pox for her (younger self) vs. the vaccine. With our youngest, vaccine is the best option due to other health problems. That is why it was so important to get our youngest one to get the pox when she was in a relatively healthy state and could deal with it.
So I’d recommend posters rein in their indignation over the idea of getting your kid to come down with the disease. It’s a longstanding practice, only recently called into question because of the vaccine, and still may be more beneficial than getting the vaccine for some. We just don’t know the big picture yet.
QtM, MD
Well, let’s see here, people who’ve had the disease have reported getting it again (even though folk wisdom has it that you won’t), and people have also reported that children who’ve been vaccinated against the disease have still contracted it, so WTF does it matter? Neither method is a sure-fire preventative, so it seems to me that the wise thing to do would be to vaccinate your kid (assuming that there’s no ill effects from the vaccine, and I’ve seen some studies which hint that there might be, but like everything, there’ll be a study published next week which will contradict it) and send 'em to chicken pox parties just to make sure.
But hey, if you want to be paranoid about a disease which has historically been seen as a rite of passage for childhood and not a scourge which has swept across the land wiping out entire population centers (like say, the black death), and require mass innoculations and quarantined like AIDS victims in Cuba, then by all means, write your congress critter and tell them about it.