# Why is chicken pox so bad for adults?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-chicken-pox-so-bad-for-adults/401690>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [April 26, 2007, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-chicken-pox-so-bad-for-adults/401690 "2007-04-26T03:50:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\
**Post date:** [April 27, 2007, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-chicken-pox-so-bad-for-adults/401690/21 "2007-04-27T19:17:46Z")

</div>

Think about polio. Back in the days when essentially everybody got it as an infant it was virtually never paralytic (although it _was_ called infantile paralysis). Better sanitation meant that a significant percentage of the population delayed getting it till childhood or even later and then it was paralytic in a quite significant percentage of cases. When adults caught it, it was especially severe (cf. FDR).

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-chicken-pox-so-bad-for-adults/401690.md?page=1)