The Chicago Sun Times reports that in a disturbing California Bay Area trend, parents wary of vaccinating their kids are considering having their unvaccinated children attend measles parties with those who are infected. The idea is the same as a chicken pox party. Parents bring their children to these gatherings to get them sick once so they won’t have to deal with the virus again. Except, most cases of chicken pox aren’t deadly. Marin County Public Health Officer Matt Willis says that although his office has received no reports of such parties, officials have fielded several calls from parents asking about the benefits of "natural immunity," or the idea that immunity gained from contracting a disease is superior to immunity conferred through vaccination. Measles is a serious illness that can cause brain swelling, long-term neurological effects and even death, Willis says. Plus, he added, there is no evidence that immunity gained through becoming sick with measles is any better than vaccine-imparted immunity. "Any parents who are considering this, they should have a look at a child who’s really sick with measles, and I think they’d change their minds."
Willis and other health officials suspect the concept of a measles party may have grown out of "pox parties," which were popular in the 1980s, before the chickenpox vaccine was widely available. Some parents, reports said, even arranged to pay strangers for licked lollipops, saliva or other items from infected children. Willis says he still hears reports of “pox parties” occurring in Marin today, even though a chickenpox vaccine has been available for more than two decades. "It was not a good idea then, and it's still not a good idea," says Wilbert Mason.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 10 2015, @11:50PM
Invite all the rich white girls. They're be a cure real fast bro.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @09:22AM
They exist, and they're called bare-backing parties. Rich white girls not invited.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Darth Turbogeek on Wednesday February 11 2015, @12:00AM
Get your kids vaccinated. It's damn simple and works.
Frankly I wonder who is doing more to fuck children - Catholic preists or anti vaxxers.
(Score: -1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @12:21AM
forcing people isn't the answer. i don't have a problem with vaccines but i can understand why a lot of people are concerned. kids grew up just fine before vaccines. kids need to get out more and play with slimy bugs and get sick occasionally. if anything preventing kids natural immune systems from developing should be considered child abuse.
vaccines aren't the be all and end all of healthcare. the reason why they are pushed by government is because the companies that make them have powerful political lobbies and contribute a lot of money to pac funds.
dependency on drugs for survival isn't a good thing.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ilPapa on Wednesday February 11 2015, @12:29AM
Sadly, no they did not.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis [wikipedia.org]
You are still welcome on my lawn.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Wednesday February 11 2015, @12:31AM
kids grew up just fine before vaccines. kids need to get out more and play with slimy bugs and get sick occasionally. if anything preventing kids natural immune systems from developing should be considered child abuse.
I get where you're coming from, but the problem with "if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger" is that
A) sometimes it kills you.
B) sometimes it kills other people.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday February 11 2015, @01:15AM
You forgot
C: It doesn't make you stronger.
http://www.webmd.com/vaccines/features/shingles-chickenpox [webmd.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @12:38AM
Vaccines do not make a lot of money and are often one treatment for lifelong immunity. Lifelong immunity from a single treatment is not "dependency on drugs". Using drugs to survive is better than dying due to lack of drugs.
(Score: 0, Troll) by frz on Wednesday February 11 2015, @01:14AM
Want to support child abuse? Sign your kids up for a vaccine trial.
Vaccines don't confer lifelong immunity for anything and I'd be surprised to see any major drug maker claiming such rubbish. Your argument disintegrates after that essential fact has been established. Vaccines are a huge money maker, from Tamiflu jabs eating up Great Britain's health budget for a fictitious flu [theguardian.com] to the rampant "unlicensed testing" (we used to call it "murder") of kids in Nigeria [allafrica.com] by Pfizer, crippling and murder of children by Glaxo-Smith-Kline in Argentina [buenosairesherald.com] at a cost of $90k, and forcibly injecting junk vaccines into kids in Chad [vactruth.com]. Shit like this doesn't do the vaxxer agenda any good, though nobody really gives a fiddler's fart about Africa these days.
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday February 11 2015, @01:34AM
Vaccines for polio, mumps,, measles, rubella , yellow feaver, confer life-long immunity.
There are several more which are suspected of life long immunity simply because they are too new to be sure or there are no re-infections known.
http://infectiousdiseases.about.com/od/prevention/a/MMR_vaccine.htm [about.com]
WHO recently added yellow fever to the list.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/yellow_fever_20130517/en/ [who.int]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @06:26PM
Tamiflu is an antiviral not a vaccine and H1N1 was not fiction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @09:07PM
You cannot persuade with logic someone who arrived at a conclusion irrationally.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @09:04AM
It does sort of cause dependency on drugs. If we didn't have vaccines, a considerable amount of people would die from the illnesses they protect against. The ones left alive would pass their 'stronger' immune system to their new babies. Eventually we'll become immune to them and they'll die out (or they'll mutate into a new disease). However since we're artificially tweaking the immune system soon after birth, the weaker kids live long enough to pass on their 'weaker' genes. Thus everyone will require the vaccines and thus the dependency on drugs.
Same thing with poor vision. Kids with terrible vision probably wouldn't have made it to mating age in the wild. Now they have glasses and mate. So their kids need glasses. And eventually everyone needs glasses because there's no evolutionary pressure against it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 11 2015, @03:20PM
Eventually we'll become immune to them and they'll die out (or they'll mutate into a new disease).
Well, since we haven't yet become immune to measles on our own, we already know how this will play out. Vaccines can also cause a disease to die out, such as smallpox.
(Score: 5, Informative) by aXis on Wednesday February 11 2015, @12:43AM
Wow, that's one of the stupidist things I've read all day.
No, kids didnt grow up just fine before vaccines. Millions of kids suffered from illnesses that are now preventable, and hundreds of thousands of them died or were left with permanant life changing disabilities.
Sure, maybe we are getting a bit over the top with cleanliness and getting a touch of gastro from eating out of the sandpit may have some long term benefit - but measles, mumps, rubella, polio and tetanus are not gastro and neeed to be treated seriously.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @04:23AM
you need to get out a bit more.
many places in the world don't have access to vaccines and kids grow up just fine. granted there are problems with things like polio and hiv, but getting your knickers in a twist because some kids in a first world country don't get their measles shots is the stupidest thing i've heard all day
(Score: 5, Informative) by aXis on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:31AM
You keep using the term "just fine" as though it's a trivial matter, but the facts speak differntly. From the Unicef website http://www.unicef.org/immunization/index_why.html [unicef.org]
Measles, a viral respiratory infection, killed over 500,000 children in 2003, more than any other vaccine-preventable disease. The measles death toll in Africa is so high – every minute one child dies – that many mothers don't give children real names until they have survived the disease. Measles weakens the immune system and renders children very susceptible to fatal complications from diarrhoea, pneumonia and malnutrition. Those that survive may suffer blindness, deafness or brain damage.
Tetanus, referred to in the Old Testament as the “seventh-day death,” killed an estimated 200,000 newborns and 30,000 mothers in 2001. The tetanus bacteria are ubiquitous – they live in soil, in animal dung and in feces. Tetanus can infect newborns if the umbilical cord is cut with unsterile instruments or the incision treated with contaminated dressings.
Polio, a viral infection of the nervous system, can cause crippling paralysis within hours. Significant progress has been made towards eradicating the disease, but it remains a serious threat to children in areas where the wild poliovirus still circulates. The number of cases worldwide dropped from 350,000 in 1988 to under 1,300 in 2004
Rotavirus, a pervasive wheel-shaped virus, is a leading cause of severe diarrhoea in infants and young children, particularly in the developing world. Currently, there is no vaccine approved for the disease, which kills 600,000 children under five each year.
Yellow fever, a viral disease that occurs primarily in tropical and subtropical areas of Africa and South America, kills 30,000 each year. The virus is transmitted most often through the bite of the female Aedes aegypti mosquito. Once controlled fairly well by widespread vaccination and mosquito control, the disease is making a comeback and outbreaks are becoming more frequent.
Doesnt sound "fine" to me. Letting our vaccination rates drop below the levels required for herd immunity is dangerous and will lead to a large number of innocent poeple dying because of a small number of stupid parents.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @08:03AM
You are talking about Africa - a third world continent where in many places malnutrition and starvation makes diseases that would otherwise be fought off by the immune system deadly, simply because fighting off a disease takes a lot of energy.
I believe the article was talking about the USA, where energy is abundant, and most people have enough stored that they could fight off three diseases without eating anything - and still be overweight afterwards.
(And if the article is really about Africa, forget about vaccinations. That's simply not available.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday February 11 2015, @04:29AM
That's the issue. These parents have NO idea of the relative risks. The old pox parties made a certain amount of sense. At the time practically everyone was going to get chicken pox eventually and the risks are much smaller for a child than an adult. The term 'pox party' might have been coined in the '80s but the practice is much older.
Measles carries much greater risks than chicken pox for a child and so the entire risk/benefit shifts. The best bet is the vaccine. Next best (if the vaccine cannot be given) is avoidance. Deliberate exposure is way down in the never do it range. It's about as goo an idea for health as pure all-natural hemlock.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @11:44PM
You're right. I remember when it was a 'pox social'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @10:05AM
Hah! I remember when it was 'a pox on you!'.
(Score: 1) by Darth Turbogeek on Wednesday February 11 2015, @01:59AM
Polio, Diptheria et all severely disagree with your assertions and are more than happy that they are being given a chance to come back.
Small Pox is sad because it got eradicated in the wild in the 20th century and wont have the chance to kill millions all over again.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @04:29AM
When they have generations of overprotected hosts pumped full of ineffective antibiotics, I'm not at all surprised. Did you honestly think existing vaccines were going to work forever?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @01:16PM
You are aware that antibiotics and vaccines are completely different in about every relevant respect? No, you probably aren't, judging from your post.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @01:02AM
It's not child abuse because A) no needles are being forcibly jabbed into kids, and B) parties are way safer than a vaccine. Having had both the useless vaccine and, a year after, the full-blown disease itself, I'd suggest going with the measles.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by physicsmajor on Wednesday February 11 2015, @01:51AM
I assume you are one of the lucky ones, then, where the testicular inflammation didn't sterilize you?
Your freedom ends at my face. Requiring vaccination is in fact the correct path. By not vaccinating, your children could end up killing mine - because the vaccine isn't effective in about 1/30. Keeping those safe, and they could well include those you love most, is the job of herd immunity.
See that number up there? One in thirty amounts to millions of vulnerable people in the USA. Most of which aren't kids. Oh, and the disease gets more dangerous as people age. Quite frankly, if you want to "choose" not to vaccinate then we should, as a society, show you to the border. It may come to that.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Wednesday February 11 2015, @04:38AM
You're thinking of mumps. Measles causes brain damage in some cases.
.
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Wednesday February 11 2015, @04:55PM
MMR stands for Measles, Mumps, and Rubella.
Thanks for the correction, but the points stand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @09:19PM
I had chickenpox or shingles when I was 19. I lost 13 kilograms in 5 days, and it was one of the most painful experiences of my teenage years.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @11:43PM
Chickenpox is caused by a herpes virus. Herpes is no joke. Anyone who was infected with it carries it for life, and it can cause a flare-up later on in life (called "shingles" when it happens in adults). I hear there's a vaccine now for chickenpox. That is a much preferable route to being covered in painful sores and taking antiviral drugs, if you can afford them.
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Thursday February 12 2015, @12:41AM
The flare-up you're thinking of is commonly called "shingles" and it's a terribly painful eruption confined to a single dermatome. It sucks, hard.
There is now a vaccine against chicken pox. If given before infected with the disease, it protects against both the childhood disease and the geriatric issue.
If you have kids, please get them vaccinated. I wish I could have been, but was born too early.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Thursday February 12 2015, @04:40AM
The older you are, the worse chickenpox hits you.
That's exactly why parents wanted their children to get it over with when they were young.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @04:58AM
Sorry, you don't get to force others to do things because they might end up being detrimental to you.
Proven vaccines for the nasty stuff are like wearing seatbelts: a really good idea someone would be foolish not to follow.
Seatbelt laws, like mandatory vaccinations, are nothing but slavery's fist wrapped in feel-good velvet.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @01:54AM
You are seriously trying to claim vaccines are not safer than a disease party. Did "measles"
How the fuck is a needle jab that stops what is in reality a nasty disease worse? Yes, sometimes in very rare vaccines don't take, that's what herd immunity is for and what exactly disease parties help break. Herd immunity also helps the extremely rare cases where a child cant be vaccinated (immune deficiency, actual reactions to a vaccine).
Retards who sprout your nonsense are helping to break herd immunity and main / kill children. Yeah that's right, measles can kill. Oh and what about all those other fun diseases like polio?
Now if this kind of actual preventable physical harm isn't child abuse (and I add that withholding of medical treatment without a good reason has been held as child abuse in court), I don't know what is.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:04AM
It's a dangerous practice and if it continues it will without doubt result in death and disability.
However, from the social standpoint, it will confer immunity and so a child who has had the measles is no risk to herd immunity.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 11 2015, @03:39PM
However, from the social standpoint, it will confer immunity and so a child who has had the measles is no risk to herd immunity.
Depends on how many people they infect in the process.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday February 11 2015, @01:08PM
We went in less than a decade from NINE shots to SEVENTY EIGHT...I'm sorry but no matter what your feelings on the subject are I'm sure we can all agree that requiring THAT many shots between birth and 18 is just bullshit. The problem is the entire thing has gotten out of hand thanks to regulatory capture [wikipedia.org] with no less than SEVEN out of the nine on the approval board being on the payroll of the companies pushing these drugs.
So instead of going "poo poo, tinfoil hatters poo poo" why not ask some sensible questions like 1.- What drugs are being pushed? 2.- How long term were the studies on these drugs? 3.- What are the odds of a child at a particular age catching the disease we are immunizing for? 4.- Why should we trust a panel where the majority are paid for by the industry they are supposed to be overseeing? 5.- Where are the studies on using this many shots grouped together so quickly, what are their findings?
Where there is smoke there is usually fire folks and if you spend more than 5 minutes learning about the backstory of this industry you'll quickly see its rife with corruption, backdoor deals, fast tracked drugs with little oversight, and companies with a history of pushing out drugs without doing studies on side effects and instead merely figuring payouts for harm into their prices. What we NEED to do is instead of saying "its all or nothing" set down and decide WHAT shots our kids should be getting, WHICH ones should be optional, and WHO should be in charge of actually doing the studies because the current system? makes the science done by big tobacco on smoking look legit.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tibman on Wednesday February 11 2015, @03:39PM
78 is beyond exaggeration. Even in the US Army you get 13. Deployments could get you up more depending on where you go. But they are for exotic things that normal Americans would never need (Rabies, Smallpox, Anthrax). So please take your basic civilian shots. They are literally trying to save your life.
13 required: Diphtheria, HepA, HepB, Influenza (every year), Measles, Meningococcal, Mumps, Pertussis, Polio, Rubella, Tetanus, Varicella, Yellow fever.
bonus shots: Anthrax, Japanese encephalitis, smallpox, typhoid, haemophilus type b, rabies.
Anthrax is like peanut butter injections. Smallpox is a week with an open festering wound on your shoulder. Fun!
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sudo rm -rf on Wednesday February 11 2015, @03:55PM
13 required
Required as in "required by law"? In Germany there is sadly no such thing as required vaccinations (arguing with physical integrity). After having spent the winter holidays with the unpleasant and unneccessary experience of Rubella [wikipedia.org], I'm all for forcing people to get vaccinated.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:02PM
Required to join the US Army. If you can't prove you have already had the shots then they'll give them all to you again : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Wednesday February 11 2015, @03:41PM
... WHO should be in charge ...
I see what you did there.
(Score: 2) by karmawhore on Wednesday February 11 2015, @04:45PM
I'm not sure where those numbers are coming from. Maybe you're talking about vaccinations (that is, diseases vaccinated against) a decade ago, then actual number of shots given today? And 78 still sounds high, but I don't have a schedule sitting in front of me, so this is all off the top of my head. A decade ago there was HepB (3 shots), DTP (2 plus at least 1 booster I think?), HepA, MMR -- and now we're up to 8 and haven't even scratched the surface.
If you want to invoke the specter of Big Pharma, please remember "they" also funded Wakefield and started this whole stupid debate. So even if you buy into the conspiracy theory, you have to admit it's not that cut and dried.
=kw= lurkin' to please
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday February 11 2015, @07:28PM
We went in less than a decade from NINE shots to SEVENTY EIGHT...
Citation desperately needed.
Mississippi's requirements, which were in the news laterly, are listed here. [state.ms.us]
I count 20 required shots for childcare (16 to simply attend school). Mostly because they come in sets of 3 or 4.
(Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday February 11 2015, @07:33PM
Yes, I will agree with Dr Hairyfeet that most of our vaccines are bullshit. Even though he does not say which ones are the problem, or cite studies as to why.
Let me guess, you are a parent and what a parent "feels" is more pertinent then science.
Go fuck yourself, I only wish you were the one getting measles instead of your children.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @10:29PM
Where are you getting these numbers from? My google-fu is not sufficient to verify this claim.
Well, I might agree with you, if you would give me a credible citation for this claim. But first I need to see that citation. Also, note that the important modifier here is credible.
Actually, I much prefer my question: where are you getting these numbers from of nine shots versus seventy eight? Before we can evaluate your other claims, we really need to know how many vaccinations are actually required. Let's first tackle that question, 'kay?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @12:04AM
I think we can think of this as evolution in action.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by morgauxo on Wednesday February 11 2015, @04:44AM
I'm all for natural selection when it eliminates the stupid adults before they reproduce. Giving deadly diseases to children is not cool.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Buck Feta on Wednesday February 11 2015, @02:06AM
If you were vaccinated before 1970 consider getting a titer done (~$50 at a test center, no doc visit required). Some of the early vaccines were not as effective and you may need a fresh MMR booster.
- fractious political commentary goes here -
(Score: 4, Interesting) by twistedcubic on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:58AM
The only person interviewed for the story is talking about a chicken pox party, long ago. Has any news outlet reported an interview with a participant in a "measles party"? Anywhere? I'm skeptical until I see evidence. All we have are vague references to parties in the Bay Area, but nothing specific.
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday February 11 2015, @07:59AM
they do some weird shit in the Bay Area.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Entropy on Wednesday February 11 2015, @02:23PM
This is probably P/R to slide flu vaccines into...everything. Trying to paint someone that doesn't
believe in a flu shot that doesn't even work, is once a year, and contains mercury into the same kind
of person that wants to give children exposure to a potentially brain-damaging disease instead of
a one time vaccination that confers lifetime immunity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @09:27PM
Are you aware that "the individual-dose bottles contain no thiomersal [livescience.com] so you can ask for those instead?
(Score: 4, Funny) by wonkey_monkey on Wednesday February 11 2015, @09:01AM
Does this mean we have to cancel our 'flu jamboree as well?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Archon V2.0 on Wednesday February 11 2015, @02:11PM
http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/measlesparties.asp [snopes.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fritsd on Wednesday February 11 2015, @02:51PM
If you're not interested in really vague anecdotes, skip this.
My grandmother, who was from 1898, once told me about the flu.
I was very young (anyway I don't remember too well) and I was leafing through her prayer-book; a bible with little "bidprentjes", small leaflets remembering which of her family and friends died when.
I vaguely remember her talking about two of her kin (I think they were nephews) who died from the big flu. That must have been the Spanish Flu from 1918 [wikipedia.org].
Now try to imagine how different life was, only 100 years ago, in the rich Western Europe: diseases were not something exciting. Diseases were things that you or your siblings could die from. Of course, it was sad, but what can you do except pray? People had larger families because you never knew which ones would be taken by the Grim Reaper before their time. Estimated 10% mortality rate.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Wednesday February 11 2015, @11:12PM
Flu still kills tens of thousands a year in the US. Vaccines are not very effective against it (yet - effective flu vaccine is being worked on). In the early years of your grandmother, regular bacterial infections were far more deadly than any flu.. Antibiotics fixed those problems.
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm [cdc.gov]
But vaccines are very effective against other diseases. Polio would have been almost eradicated if it wasn't for some idiots in funny hats terrorizing local populations. Small pox doesn't exist in the wild anymore and we don't even need a vaccine against it anymore.