Chicken Pox Parties

In response to Jon, get the facts. According to the Center for Disease Control, vaccines GREATLY reduce the chance of children contracting these illnesses but are not 100%. So if your kid is not vaccinated and is unfortunate enough to come down with one of these diseases, my child could still contract it from your kid, though it is unlikely. So that is why I care about my children going to school with unvaccinated kids.

In response to Kat B., I am not intolerant of any religion. However these loopholes were put in place to have people avoid state laws that require vaccination for religious beliefs ONLY. Parents are lying and claiming religious beliefs falsely and that is abuse. period.

And in response to SandyOne, believing that doctors know what they are talking about is absolutely not dangerous thinking. Of course they are human and humans make mistakes. However this is not one or two, or even a handful of rogue medical professionals who recommend these vaccines. It is the American Academy of Pediatrics, the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control as well as 99.9% of the medical community. We are talking doctors and medical professionals and disease control experts numbered in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, WORLD WIDE who recommend children be vaccinated. How dare you or any other parent dispute this? Until you get your medical degree and convince all those other people that you are right and they and their DECADES of research is incorrect, your opinion means nothing to me and should not mean anything to anyone with half a brain. Oh, and shaving the pubic area? Episiotomy? Hello?? Those do not KILL CHILDREN!!! Come on, what a joke and a poor comparison!

Perfect example: measle outbreak in crunchy california. These childrens are victims of their wannabe know-it-all parents! So Sad!
http://pediatrics.about.com/b/2008/03/18/california-measles-outbreak.htm

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Don, thank you for the clarification. I truly do appreciate it. The intellect response was not to you. Here's the thing, though (for both Maya and Don): There ARE parents out there who invest time, money, and love into finding the best course for their kids. Even though they may come to a different decision than you, that doesn't mean it's a wrong one. And hurling names & insults at them (Maya), or trying to convert them with bunches of information (I already did and do my research, thanks) on ParentDish is NOT going to change their minds. (However, Don, I do appreciate that you try to support your points with actual evidence - that is more than most doctors take the time to do. ) Unfortunately, the majority of the medical community is unwilling to even acknowledge these parents' concerns, preferring instead to force or coerce them into doing whatever the medical community thinks is fine at the time (despite past issues like thalidamide & thimerisol). In the end, the parent makes the decision and will find a way to see it through. Brushing off these parents' concerns won't make them go away - it will just result in more parents getting angry or mistrustful of their doctors & finding unhealthy ways of subverting the system. Until our medical professionals accept that and become willing to work WITH parents instead of AGAINST them, this issue will just keep getting bigger and bigger.

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The "debate" about vaccination reflects belief systems, not facts.

Some folks simply refuse to deal with the facts: breast feeding "pumps" a baby full of more "toxins" that the AAP vaccination schedule (yes, Matilda, there is mercury in breast milk and it comes just when the CNS is undergoing extraordinary development), but you won't find a person with anti-vaccinationist beliefs recommending formula over breast milk.

Another fact is that we have a host of cognitive biases (in the literal sense) that affect our assessment of risk. While the medical consequences of chicken pox are generally mild, it causes serious consequences (see the snip below) in 1% of cases (that's 1 of 100 vs. the reported ASD (not just autism) rate of 1 of 166). So even if vaccinations were the SOLE cause of ASD cases, the objective risk that you will inflict a serious adverse consequence on your child by poxing them is roughly 50% higher.

Justifying those acts requires us to apply all those cognitive biases that help explain why bad things happen to other people, not us, and certainly not to our children.

By the way, if you want to actually reduce the objective risk of injury to your child, make sure your caregivers know about the vulnerability of children under age 5 to head trauma and have a coping plan to deal with moments of frustration. A recent study found that 2.6% of parents reported shaking had been used to discipline a child under age 2 in their home.

That's 1 in 52.

Of course, you wouldn't do that. But what about your child care provider, your babysitter or the friend who takes care of your child when you're sick with the flu?

>>Chickenpox is an uncomfortable infection that, in most cases, goes away by itself. However, chickenpox also has been associated with serious complications, including death. About one of every 100 children infected with chickenpox will develop a severe lung infection (pneumonia), an infection of the brain (encephalitis), or a problem with the liver. Dangerous skin infections also can occur. Before the introduction of the vaccine, about 100,000 people were hospitalized and 100 people in the United States died each year of chickenpox, most of them previously healthy children. Adolescents and adults who develop chickenpox are also at high risk of developing serious complications.

After a person has chickenpox, the virus typically lives silently in the nervous system of the body for the rest of a person's life. It may reactivate (come to life again) at any time when the body's immune defenses are weakened by stress or illness (such as cancer or HIV infection) or by medications that weaken the immune system. The most common reason for the virus to reactivate is getting older. Reactivation of the virus causes a condition called shingles, a painful blistering skin rash that typically occurs on the face, chest or back, in the same area where one or two of the body's sensory nerves travel.

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First of all, if u as a parent decide on whether or not to vaccinate ur children is, yes, ur choice......However, please do not make light of Chicken Pox. When my now 13 year old son was 6 he contracted Chicken Pox.....this poor child was covered from head to foot...he had them on the whites of his eyes, down his throat, in his anus and the doctor believed on the stem of his brain because he would become extremely lathragic, fall down and pass out. My son had a dangerously high fever of 104.7 f and had to be hospitalized for 7 days because of what u all say "Simple Chicken Pox".
So when it comes to vaccinating my 2 month old daughter....DARN right i'm going to vaccinate her and not because i don't want to miss any work!!!!!!!!!! I can't even imagion deliberatly bring her to another childs house so she can purposely come in contact with chicken pox...........U mothers should be ashamed of urselves.....i just pray none of u and ur children have to go thru what my son and i did with this disease.........Think about that!!!!!

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It was never a question whether to vaccinate my children. When I was 7 years old I got the chicken pox and my parents never knew what was about to happen. I woke up, unable to walk. A quick trip to the doctor/hospital and I was being rushed to CHOP with encephalitis. Its not a joke, this disease is the #1 preventable disease of children. I was in the hospital for 2 weeks, weakened unable to even get out of bed. I can only imagine what was going through my parents mind. Encephalitis is swelling of the brain caused by an infection. Its no joke and it can happen to anyone. The tests I had to go through, no 7 year old should ever have to go through. And to think someone would purposely expose their child to that kind of risk and refer chicken pox as a joke, it just makes me very upset.

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For those who have gotten your kids vaccinated did you read the vaccine's side instructions and effects??? I bet you took your newly vaccinated child to see grandparents, pregnant ladies,newborns and people with low imune systems. My DD was effect by freshly vaccinated friend before she was old enough to get the shot . This vaccine has as many side effect as getting the chickenpox so I figure chicken pox is less risky and infectous (2 weeks /6 weeks)

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The chicken pox vaccine does not always prevent chicken pox. It does however help build up the immune system in the case of chicken pox...so that children won't die or have lifelong complications from the disease. I am sorry, but I would rather my son have a shot in the arm than go share even more germs with another poor child who is sick and should be resting.

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For parents looking for options - I did a google search and found www.chickenpoxparties.com

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My issue with the vaccine is...how long does the average vaccine last? On average, vaccines last between 10-15 years. If you immunize a one year old...that means the vaccine could wear off any time as a teenager/adult. After learning this, I had to ask myself...when is Chicken Pox the most deadly to a person? AS AN ADULT!!!! This rationalization is why I decided to seek natural immunity to the chicken pox for my kids.

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