Throw Your Child A Swine Flu Party!
Posted by: Justine Fields
Filed in:
news
4:40PM, Tuesday June 30th 2009
We’ve heard of chicken pox parties, where parents get their healthy kids together with ones who have the pox hoping that they’ll pick up the germies. The idea is, since you can only get chicken pox once, to get it over with so that kids can build up their immune systems and avoid getting chicken pox vaccines. Yeah, we don’t think it’s a good idea, but at least it makes slight logical sense.
However, we just don’t get why some mothers are thinking about throwing swine flu parties. Same idea, different disease—they want to strengthen their children’s immune systems in case a stronger swine flu strain comes around in the fall. But a swine flu party is just outrageous! Doctors are firmly warning against the idea as several people have died from H1N1 in the months it’s been around. So mothers, if you know what’s best, skip the Swine Par-tay. Throw a Dora, Dora, the Explorer shindig instead. [CNN]
TheFrisky.com is part of the Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network
wonder_bread
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 05:50 am: [report]
thats weird i caught the chicken pops twice..-.-
Infamous
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 07:28 am: [report]
I didn’t realize that parents still had chicken pox parties since they came out with a vaccine. That’s so stupid to me. Why put your child through that misery just to avoid a shot? Studies have proven there’s no connection between our current vaccines and autism, so…? I don’t get it.
And the people who are dying from swine flu are those who are already immunocompromised. You might not know if your child is fighting off some other infection. It’s like literally telling your child to play in traffic.
writergirl
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 07:43 am: [report]
@infamous
There is a HUGE debate within the parenting community about the CP Vaccine. Not because it causes autism (IT doesn’t, most autism advocates place that blame squarely on the MMR vaccine) but because the idea is isn’t it better for the child to catch CP naturally rather than have him/her innoculated. There are no long-term studies associated with this vaccine (too new) and there are several cases where the kids get CP even after getting the vaccine, so the effectiveness of the vacine is in question. My son was one who had the vaccine and then caught the pox on top of it, and not as a reaction to the shot. He got the CP about six months after he had the shot.
The shot is required for most schools districts. HOWEVER, I believe some school districts will give you an exemption if s/he already has contracted CP, the argument being that they are now immune. I don’t know, that’s what a friend of mine told me, and I never checked up on the validity of the statement because it didn’t matter in regard to my school district.
Lynn
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 09:55 am: [report]
Woah. I’ve never heard of chicken pox parties. Makes sense, but still sounds a little nutty.
Chebs
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 11:39 am: [report]
My older sister when to a chicken pox party when she was younger. I caught it naturally after I’d already gotten the shot, I think about a year or so later. If memory serves, both of my younger sisters also had the shot, but they never caught chicken pox. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought chicken pox was better to catch when you were younger because it was milder than what you would catch if you were older, and that was also part of the rationale behind the parties?
writergirl
wrote on July 1 2009 @ 11:42 am: [report]
@Chebs—yes, exactly. Better to have it younger than older.
Infamous
wrote on July 6 2009 @ 03:10 pm: [report]
@writergirl: Mind you, most of the knowledge I have of this vaccine is when we covered it briefly in nursing school, and I don’t work in pediatrics, but it is my understanding that if a child comes down w/ CP after have been vaccinated that theirs will be a much milder version of what they would have gotten. There is also supposed to be a lower risk of contracting it at all, and a lower risk of developing shingles later in life. But, yes, it is a newer vaccine so I guess time will tell whether it will be determined preferable to naturally-acquired immunity. The benefit, I believe, is that there are serious complications that could accompany CP, including developing lesions in the throat or encephalitis.
@Chebs: Yes, typically, adults who contract the virus for the first time have a much more severe reaction.