RO: Spreading Disease via the mail

The BBQ Pit
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You can get the shingles vaccine before you’re sixty. I recommend it, if you can afford it. (It’s around $200 where I live, but I’m planning on getting it.)

Part of the problem, I think, is that there are a lot of children’s books/TV episodes in which a character has chicken pox (usually) or measles or mumps, and it’s no big deal, except that they miss out on something fun. (However, something else even more fun happens while they’re sick.) They don’t get the awful, real-life side effects, though. Some of these things were written before the chicken pox vaccine, but some weren’t. I’m talking to you, Curious George, in which Betsy gets chicken pox. I’m talking to you, Arthur, in which Arthur and D. W. get it.

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Two words: Child Abuse.

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http://law.findlaw.com/state-laws/child-abuse/florida/

Handing a child a lollipop that might be infected is a positive act as opposed to an aniivaxers who doesn’t take their child for a shot.

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To the best of my understanding (IANA epidemiologist or immunologist), shingles only occurs in those who were once infected with chicken pox. Even infection with varicella via shingles sores produces chicken pox, not shingles. If anything, dwindling vaccine effectiveness and failure to get boosters with the chicken pox vaccine would first cause increasing infection rates of chicken pox; an increase in shingles infection among those then infected with chicken pox would likely lag by decades due to how the disease manifests. But yes, we do not have long-term proof, YMMV, this is not your father’s [del]Oldsmobile[/del] vaccine, etc., etc. We shall see.

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This has, apparently, gotten lost in the miasma of outrage, so I’ll restate this for you.

Most of us aren’t objecting (much) to pox parties, or the use of Facebook to arrange them. That’s no more than people have been doing for some time without Facebook. Happened to me when I was a kid back in the early 70s. Back then, it was a good idea because there was no vaccine and because it is less dangerous to have chicken pox as a child than as an adult. There’s a vaccine now, though, and while I think people who’d choose to expose their child to an unknown strength virus than to a known vaccine are foolish, I can’t quite find it in me to condemn them for it. For chicken pox, that is. Other diseases, not so much, but that’s another discussion.

What we’re objecting to, strenuously and for good reason, is that people on those pages were using those pages to arrange the shipment of contaminated material through the U.S. Mail. They are exposing postal workers to this contaminated material and putting the lives of those workers at risk. Furthermore,

Oh, and one other thing. With the vaccine, you know that the **only **thing the child is being exposed to is the chicken pox. With the lollipop, you don’t.

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This here, thank you. (I checked, my husband has indeed had chicken pox. Not everyone has, though.)

And yes, that shipment is highly illegal. I’ve undergone certification to ship biohazardous materials, and shipping just a little bit of blood serum without any expected infectious agents in a tube in absorbent material in a thick specialized ziploc in a strong box requires a ton of paperwork, warning labeling, and shipment via a courier like FedEx. Putting a known infectious agent in a store-bought ziploc in an envelope is mindboggling.

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In fairness, some kids really don’t get very sick from chicken pox- according to my Mum, my brother, when he got it, didn’t feel like breakfast one morning, had two (2) spots, and felt fine by the following day. If you or your kid just got it like that, it would seem like a suitably mild plot device.
I got it for two weeks, was covered in horrible itchy spots, felt awful and- to make it worse- it was the easter holidays. :frowning:

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And the page that started this all off is back live on Facebook. With a disclaimer that includes

<sigh>

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:rolleyes:

Yeah let’s tiptoe around people plotting to spread infectious diseases. Their feelings might be hurt and that would suck.

Do you know that there’s a fucking measles epidemic going on right now in the United States and Europe solely because of the anti-vaccine morons? Did you know that measles is one of the world’s most contagious diseases, has a huge risk of complications and the vaccine is not really effective in babies under a year? I assume you know this, right?

As I was giving birth in April a nurse turned on the television as a report came on local news about a measles outbreak in a restaurant I happen to adore half a mile from the hospital. Worse, the idiot doctor dropping the epidural needle into my back commented that he thought there had to be some connection between vaccines and autism. That’s the level of crazy we’re dealing with here.

The anti-vaxxers should damned well find their very own island and stay there. They are a menace to society and rightfully deserve to be called out at every turn.

You’re not a parent so I doubt you read any parenting related message boards. I don’t think you have any idea what a fucking pain in the ass they are. You cannot research this subject or discuss it on a parenting message board without one of them showing up with a huge, smug pile of gish gallop that takes hours to wade through. You have no idea what it’s like to listen to an idiot neighbor praise Jenny McCarthy or try to reason your parents into getting an updated whooping cough vaccine dose before they babysit and they’re scared because a moronic neighbor of theirs sent them an anti-vax email.

Parenting is damned hard. The anti-vax nuts take the one of the easiest parenting decisions imaginable and attempt to make it much harder. That’s inexcusable.

Thank you.

I had chicken pox the summer I was seven. It was two weeks of itching everywhere and endless wipes of calomine lotion that didn’t work. If I can spare my daughters the same ordeal I’ll do so gladly. If they need another cp shot or a shot for shingles later in life then so be it.

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I remember pox parties when I was little. The fact that I had already been through the pox at age 3, allowed me to become the most in-demand babysitter when we moved to a neighborhood where the pox was just beginning to make the rounds. Unfortunately, my mother insisted my pay be kept lower than others because I was so young. Go figure.

The best part about having the pox was that my dad gave me my bath instead of my mom, who was soothing my brothers. My dad was an only child and therefore used to filling the tub full of water. My mom was one of many and had taught us to only put two inches of water in the tub. Having Dad give me a bath was luxury itself and almost worth the pox. This, and the sight of marks on my skin, are my only memories of having the pox.

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Yes that would suck. Because short of a draconian legal solution, it’s a hearts and minds thing. Stupid people can’t make decisions based on knowledge and logic so they make those decisions based on what people they trust tell them. And they trust people who are nice to them.

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It’s entiely possible you did get it but simply weren’t very affected by it, and it appeared to be just a bad cold.

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Someone who ships dangerous infectious material through the mail without warning to deliberately infect a child with a potentially serious illness should not be patted on the head. They should be jailed.

The anti-vax nuts are a public health menace and should be treated as such.

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I get the “hearts and minds” thing, but what people don’t understand is that anti-vaxxers won’t be won over. By any means. Their minds are firmly entrenched in their opinions, and no amount of niceness, facts, or logic will make any difference.

Now, the undecided, the unsure, the confused - those we do need to reach out to with calm, tact, and clear information that walks them through the issues without using scare tactics. THOSE people are worth our time and effort.

The anti-vaxxers? They deserve nothing but contempt, because they are threatening lives with their nonsense, and they will not be reasoned with.

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No question that specific illegal actions like posting infectious material etc should attract appropriate sanction. However, what I was commenting on was the more general point about anti-vax dialogue. As you would know if you weren’t so blinded by rage and were reading for comprehension.

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You’ve obviously not checked out mothering.com, or you’d be blinded by rage, too.

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I can’t speak for **even sven **but I would guess she understands there are those who are unreachable by any practical means, but I would also suspect that it is those fencesitters watching the debate that she sees it as important to win over.

And Sarahfeena, is being blinded by rage somehow a positive attribute now? It’s a matter of doing what works. It’s too important an issue to let rage be a guide.

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There is no anti-vax dialogue. They do not, will not, and cannot read/listen/hear any facts, logic, or reason that does not fit into their mindset. You clearly have not had any experience attempting to have “dialogue” with them and had every attempt, of any kind, with any supporting evidence, dismissed with a Gish Gallop of bullshit combined with a tightly-wound sense of persecution and belief in conspiracy theory.

People who send lollipops contaminated with live virus through the public mail are those people. Therefore, they can be dismissed with contempt without any attempt to engage in discussion.

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Where did I say it was a positive attribute? I’m only saying it’s an understandable one. And let me tell you, it doesn’t matter because nothing works, so you might as well let yourself get pissed off if it makes you feel better.

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Exactly. Picture a good hearted but somewhat dim mother who got an anti-vax email forward and decided to try to figure it out for herself. She doesn’t understand a lot of science, but she generally trusts things that seem backed up with evidence. Looking at a few websites, it appears to her like there are some good arguments for both sides. Both sides are pulling out what seem to her to be pretty trustworthy sources and studies. They both have nice looking websites with what looks like rather convincing scientific jargon and credible experts. There are doctors on both sides, right? She wonders how she is supposed to make sense of what looks like two diametrically opposed opinions that both seem pretty credible. On what basis is she supposed to choose.

So she decides to look for individual opinions, and she stumbles upon a message board that is perhaps a bit on the crunchy side, but seems to her to be full of plenty of nice, well meaning people. In the vaccination forum, she posts a thread like this, expressing her genuine confusion. Along come some people with what seem to be pretty common sense reasons not to vaccinate children. And they also warn her that the pro-vaccination side is dominated by ideological zealots that are so blindly obsessed with their own short-sighted idea that they aren’t willing to even entertain other ideas.

So, to be fair, she takes a look at the other side. Sure enough, she finds a thread like this where they are ranting about exiling people to desert islands and gruesome death by badger! Wow, she thinks, that’s a lot of vitriol for what she’s become pretty convinced is a personal choice.

And at this point she’s done some checking around, and figured out that there are some places where vaccination as public health policy is genuinely complicated. But here they are, seemingly saying that ALL vaccines are ALWAYS right ALL THE TIME. But there are questions about the need for TB vaccines, right? I mean the US doesn’t recommend them universally, but the UK does. How could they say that vaccines are ALWAYS right?

They’re right over there at the Mothering forums, she thinks. The pro-vaccination camp aren’t thinking about science at all, they are thinking about ideology and zealotry. It’s kind of sad how the drug companies have pulled the wool over so many people’s eyes and made them abandon independent thought, she thinks to herself. Why do they have to be so hateful and defensive about what she now thinks of as a very personal decision? Vaccinate if you want, she thinks, but why do you call me names for what I think is true? They must not have much more to lean on, she supposes.

So she goes back to her friendly little granola community, and they are still there writing posts like this, which confirm her experiences pretty well. She feels glad to be in such an open-minded and even handed community, even if it does seem a little flaky to her around the edges. At least they seem welcoming and accepting.

And ignorance scores another point.