Chicken Pox via Mail

Intentionally infecting your child with chicken pox may have been acceptable prior to the introduction of the vaccine. My mother arranged a "play date" with another little girl who had chicken pox, causing me to catch it when I was young, but things have changed. Chicken pox is highly infectious and can be life threatening particularly to adults, and very young children and immuno-comprimised individuals who cannot be vaccinated. Scheduled vaccines are by far the best means of achieving herd immunity to protect the population, particularly those who cannot be vaccinated.

An added benefit of the small pox vaccine is that it does not allow for the potential to develop shingles later in life, while catching chicken pox does. While booster shots are necessary, individuals who contracted chicken pox are also able to lose their immunity and often will also require booster shots. The vaccine is still extremely effective, whith the number of individuals contracting the disease plummeting since the vaccine's introduction.

The anti-vaccination movement is largely fuelled by misinformation (lies about effectiveness and the amount of time that passes before a booster is required), fear-mongering (lies and exaggerated risks especially regarding particular ingredients), and strawmen. No medical interventjon is 100% safe, but in this case, when you perform a risk analysis, the benefits of immunising the population against chicken pox far outweigh the risks, with serious negative reactions to the vaccine being extremely rare.

I wondered about shingles, and asked the pediatrician years ago when my kids got the varicella vaccine. She said the vaccine was new, and they didn't yet know whether it led to or prevented shingles. I hope you are right in that it prevents them. That's good for my kids, but I'm still in danger. Then I heard just recently that there is a vaccine for shingles itself available to the elderly. Nice!

The available literature suggests that assuming immunity to chicken pox from the vaccine is present, it should also prevent shingles. It also suggests that the vaccine cannot cause shingles later in life like the live virus can. But then again I'm not a doctor. As I'm sure you know, if in doubt, ask your doctor :)

Here in the UK, immunisation against chicken pox is not routine, with the general medical advice still being that to contract it as a child and thus gain immunity is still preferred. The varicella vaccine is only routinely available to those in specifically risky groups. So here you will still find parents keen to take their kids to parties where there is a suspicion of chicken pox. It worked for me! Although the 'pox in the mail' idea is just icky...

a certain episode of South Park comes to mind...

This is horrifying.

This is the saddest and the most dangerous thing I have ever heard of. A woman we were talking to once, wanted us to have our son who had chicken pox at the time to come and play with her child so she could get it too. My partner told her that she was an idiot for even suggesting such a thing. You do not know how the child's immune system is going to handle it. Clearly there are some people in this world who should not be allowed to have children. What if a pregnant mail worker contracted the disease and left her child profoundly disabled. Very sad and anyone who agrees with these people are complete morons and should not be allowed to have kids of their own.

@Lemur Lady I also live in the UK and the advice if the NHS is very much against trying to infect your children. So I don't know upon what evidence you base your claim that the "general medical advice" is to contract the disease as a child.

Varicella can have quite serious complications in children, but these complications are very rare and as such the risk is not considered to be high enough to warrant a widespread programme of vaccination. Adults do have a higher risk of developing complications, but since almost 90% of adults are considered immune it is also considered that the risk is too low to warrant a programme of vaccination.

One of the main reasons that deliberate infection is not recommended is that the disease needs to be controlled in order to protect act risk groups. Since these groups include pregnant women and newborn babies you can hopefully see that deliberately spreading the disease is not to be recommended.

In the UK medical advice is still that you keep children away from school, nursery or other children generally until they are no longer infected. This clearly argues against your idea that doctors recommend deliberate infection. Why would they recommend deliberate infection AND recommend that you keep infectious children away from other children?

1) Interestingly being infected with chickenpox is not nearly as effective in guaranteeing immunity as the vaccine. In the UK at least some 13% of patients presenting with chickenpox report that they have had the disease before.

2) The few risks which are associated with the vaccine are much smaller than the risks from the disease itself. Futhermore somebody who has been vaccinated does not put others at risk. Newborn infants, pregnant women and those with a weakened immune system are at greater risk of complications from the disease than other groups. If you deliberately infect your child you are potentially putting those people at risk. Remember chickenpox is infectious for approximately two days before symptoms appear so even if your child does not show any symptoms they may be infectious. Deliberately infecting your child is selfish because they may come into contact with other children before symptoms are obvious and your child may infect the children of a family who do not share you views on the disease. Worse still your child may infect a child who comes into contact with somebody in one of the high risk groups. What if your child infects a child who has a newborn infant sibling or pregnant mother?

Taking points 1 & 2 into consideration, if you want your child to be immune to chickenpox it is much better to have them vaccinated than to deliberately infect them with the disease. Even if vaccination is not available free where you live it is usually available and not expensive.

The efficacy of pox parties is an old wives' tale. Do you trust other old wives' tales?

Miss C, get the shingles vaccine. My mom got it, it's quick and easy. On the other hand, my grandma got shingles and they are terrifying.

A general FYI for others who have not experienced shingles: if you develop red spots on one side of your body that appear in an oddly straight line, this is almost definitely a sign you're developing shingles.

I didn't know this, but was very lucky to point it out to someone only a couple days after they appeared. They informed me it was almost definitely shingles and I got to the doctor right away for a shot.

Thankfully, catching it that early prevented anything but a minor irritation. Had I waited, it could have been very painful.

I caught measles as an unvaccinated child. Nearly died from meningitis, have been deaf ever since.

We vaccinate children to protect them from this scourge.

When I come across anti-vaxxers I want to punch their lights out : we vaccinate because any dangers from vaccines are trivial compared to the dangers of the disease.

I had chicken pox at 6. I developed shingles at age 26. It was two weeks of the most protracted and intense pain I've ever had in my life, and I've had kidney stones, so I've got a pretty high pain threshold.

The idea of sending chicken-pox-infected lollipops through the mail is disgusting on so many levels.

I have removed a few comments. There is no reasons for commenters to be nasty to each other. Also, no reason for profanity or lunatic ravings.

Play nice, now.

If you want to leave your opinion in a comment, try doing it without the off-color insults. More comments and responses deleted