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Mailing Chickenpox Lollipops and Other Infected Items is Illegal

Your Star said:
Gosh I hope I never get it. Never had it as a kid, really don't want to get it as an adult.
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Get the vaccine. The disease is AWFUL as an adult.
 
Deuce said:
The risks of vaccine complications aren't even in the same universe as the risks of the illnesses they prevent. You know those people who claim they don't wear seatbelts because it's safer to be thrown from the car sometimes? Think like that, except on an airliner. Someone deciding that sometimes it's better to be thrown from your seat in a plane crash so they don't wear a seatbelt on the airline flight.

That's pretty much the level of stupid we're talking about.
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It's not stupid - it's a real and understandable concern but it's just not as big as the concern per the effects of the illness.

You don't know how your child will respond until they get it (vaccinations) - so it's a bit scary putting your faith in the idea that you'll be in the 'ok' percentile - because every year hundreds are in the 'not ok' percentile.

Because of a heart condition my older son had to get a shot of antibiotics when it came to certain immunizations - I was never worried that he'd become ill (and he never did) but I most certainly understand people's issues.
 
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CaptainCourtesy said:
In rare cases you CAN get chicken pox a second time. And, having chicken pox leaves you susceptible to getting shingles in the future, a disease that is very painful and potentially quite scarring.
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Getting chicken pox as an adult can be very bad.
It can make you sterile too.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
In rare cases you CAN get chicken pox a second time. And, having chicken pox leaves you susceptible to getting shingles in the future, a disease that is very painful and potentially quite scarring.
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Well it turns out that I didn't know as much about it as I thought I did, but the fact remains... if you are fearful of a bad situation, then get the vaccine. I don't see why I should have to get it just to suit the fears of other people. It's not my responsibility to prevent others from getting sick.

Maggie posted a link that I find really interesting. I myself had ruled out the autism connection but now that I have read the CDC report I think there is still a connection.

I have also read preliminary research that tries to assess the link between auto-immune disease and vaccines in certain populations, such as people who already have auto-immune disease (even in the earliest of stages), or specific sub-populations that are susceptible because their immune systems are over-active.

You can read about those here:
Autoimmune diseases and vaccinations. [Eur J Dermatol. 2004 Mar-Apr] - PubMed - NCBI
Swiss warn on flu vaccine with autoimmune disease | Reuters

Vaccines inject a latent pathogen past all of the body's natural defenses and put it at the deepest level, where it can reside for years and years, potentially causing the body to have immune responses that are exaggerated or misdirected. I think this research is very important, given how allergies are changing in children, and the level of auto-immune diseases that are now appearing in adults, such as MS, rheumatoid arthritis, etc.

I think it's the height of hubris to rule that vaccines are 100% safe. There are known side effects, and even if classified as rare, when spread out over large populations that's a lot of people. There are also unknown side effects that we are only beginning to study, and we can't know them because they are related our limits of what we know of the human body itself. My mother grow up in the era when children and buildings were being sprayed with DDT and it was called "safe", all because we wanted the convenience of not having to deal with mosquitos and bugs. Now people have Parkinson's and other horrible nervous diseases because of it.

Every new vaccine we create needs to stand the test of time, and even then, we should always be refining our knowledge in correlation to our understanding of the body.

I will never get a vaccine. I have seen too much anecdotal evidence that it's not good for you, and the North American medical establishment is complicit in trying to suppress it in the name of obscene profits. At least in Europe the governments have the sanity to require more rigorous drug trials than here, and they have more funding for ongoing research into this. Look at the article above about how the Swiss are warning of potential auto-immune reactions, even though the research is not 100% conclusive. That is a government that cares about its people. Vaccines are not a natural way to build the body's immunity, and so we should ALWAYS be investigating them, even after we believe they are safe. The work must continue.

Until then... I'm exercising my personal freedom and responsibility, and not getting one. Neither is my child. When he turns 18 he can decide for himself, but as long as he's under my care that junk will not be going into his body. He already has autism and special needs... I won't potentially damage him further.
 
Temporal said:
Well it turns out that I didn't know as much about it as I thought I did, but the fact remains... if you are fearful of a bad situation, then get the vaccine. I don't see why I should have to get it just to suit the fears of other people. It's not my responsibility to prevent others from getting sick.

Maggie posted a link that I find really interesting. I myself had ruled out the autism connection but now that I have read the CDC report I think there is still a connection.

I have also read preliminary research that tries to assess the link between auto-immune disease and vaccines in certain populations, such as people who already have auto-immune disease (even in the earliest of stages), or specific sub-populations that are susceptible because their immune systems are over-active.

You can read about those here:
Autoimmune diseases and vaccinations. [Eur J Dermatol. 2004 Mar-Apr] - PubMed - NCBI
Swiss warn on flu vaccine with autoimmune disease | Reuters

Vaccines inject a latent pathogen past all of the body's natural defenses and put it at the deepest level, where it can reside for years and years, potentially causing the body to have immune responses that are exaggerated or misdirected. I think this research is very important, given how allergies are changing in children, and the level of auto-immune diseases that are now appearing in adults, such as MS, rheumatoid arthritis, etc.

I think it's the height of hubris to rule that vaccines are 100% safe. There are known side effects, and even if classified as rare, when spread out over large populations that's a lot of people. There are also unknown side effects that we are only beginning to study, and we can't know them because they are related our limits of what we know of the human body itself. My mother grow up in the era when children and buildings were being sprayed with DDT and it was called "safe", all because we wanted the convenience of not having to deal with mosquitos and bugs. Now people have Parkinson's and other horrible nervous diseases because of it.

Every new vaccine we create needs to stand the test of time, and even then, we should always be refining our knowledge in correlation to our understanding of the body.

I will never get a vaccine. I have seen too much anecdotal evidence that it's not good for you, and the North American medical establishment is complicit in trying to suppress it in the name of obscene profits. At least in Europe the governments have the sanity to require more rigorous drug trials than here, and they have more funding for ongoing research into this. Look at the article above about how the Swiss are warning of potential auto-immune reactions, even though the research is not 100% conclusive. That is a government that cares about its people. Vaccines are not a natural way to build the body's immunity, and so we should ALWAYS be investigating them, even after we believe they are safe. The work must continue.

Until then... I'm exercising my personal freedom and responsibility, and not getting one. Neither is my child. When he turns 18 he can decide for himself, but as long as he's under my care that junk will not be going into his body. He already has autism and special needs... I won't potentially damage him further.
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That's fine... and your right. My position is that I consider the possible side-effects of the vaccine far more preferable to the potential problems brought on by the disease. I've always been vaccinated, and will continue to do so when appropriate. Not too long ago I got the hepatitis vaccine and am glad that I did.
 
I think my buddy Randall Munroe summed up anti-vaccine hysteria (and the foolish "alternative medicine" movement in general) pretty accurately:

alternative_literature.png
 
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Temporal said:
Of all the children I've met who have had it, I've never heard of a kid going to the hospital for it. I think that must be pretty rare.
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jamesrage said:
Its one thing when a child gets chicken pox on their own and its another when a parent deliberate gives their children chicken pox. **** like these lollipops should be illegal.
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Aunt Spiker said:
Per the tainted lollies: I never understood the thought process of parents who intentionally infect tehir children with anything. When I was a kid pox-parties were big. thankfully my parents were respectful enough of me to not send me off to one in the hopes I'd come down with it.

Who does that? Like - ever? What type of person WANTS their child to contract an illness, condition or disease? A little twisted. It goes against parenting - I think. I protect my children FROM conditions - I don't want them to CONTRACT conditions.
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Chickenpox is less serious than some of the other commonly vaccinated childhood diseases, and the younger you are when you catch it, generally the less serious that it is. That's why parents traditionally tried to infect their children with it early-- before the invention of the vaccine, getting chickenpox as a small child was a crude but effective vaccination against catching it as an adult when it will wreck your ****. My mother made sure that I caught it when I was four because she wanted to make sure I didn't catch it in my teens or as an adult, because the vaccine wasn't available in the US until years later. If there had been a vaccine, I'm sure I would have received it instead.

Now, measles, that's an entirely different story. There's a reason people in developing countries say not to count your children before the measles. And since measles is another one of those childhood diseases they vaccinate for, a lot of these anti-vax people are doing the same thing with it.

And if you want to draw a link between the MMR vaccine and autism... well, autism spectrum disorders are one of the frequent symptoms of congenital rubella syndrome, which is caused by pregnant women contracting rubella during the first trimester. In other words, the MMR vaccine is responsible of the prevention of hundreds of thousands if not millions of cases of autism and other developmental disorders since it was invented. The fact that many "healthy" children develop autistic symptoms after the MMR vaccine is a coincidence, because that just happens to be the age at which many autistic children start developing symptoms-- dating back to before the vaccine was available.

Aunt Spiker said:
They aren't "safe" - but it's a matter of weighing our risk: risk of contracting THAT disease - VS the lower risk of developing reactions to the vaccine.

I know some parents weigh out the risk and avoid certain vaccinations due to the high-risk rate associated with it and they consider that the risk of contracting said disease is low.
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This is textbook Tragedy of the Commons, because the more parents who neglect childhood vaccinations, the greater the chances that their child becomes infected. The odds of a non-vaccinated child contracting measles in the United States are negligible, whereas before the vaccine was invented it was considered practically inevitable.
 
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