“A movement that health experts call “an incredibly bad idea.”
The New York Times reports,
The offer – for lollipops infected with chickenpox virus – appeared on Facebook last month and quickly circulated among parents who oppose vaccinating their children against diseases.
“I have PayPal and plenty of spit and suckers,” the message read. “It works too because that’s how we got it! Our round was FedEx’d from Arizona. We’ve spread cooties to Cookeville, Knoxville and Louisiana!”
Other parents on the same message board posted requests for shipments of a variety of chickenpox-infected items – towels, children’s clothes, rags. By getting their children to touch the contaminated items or suck on tainted candy, they believe their children will get the stronger immunity that surviving a full-blown natural infection of chickenpox affords, without the hazards they say come with vaccines.
The posts advertising the infected lollipops have since been taken down, and there is no evidence that anyone actually bought them. But public health experts warn the practice is misguided, and dangerous.
Ok, so they are innoculating their children with full-blown live viruses instead of the weakened, watered-down versions. I can understand the idea, I can understand the philosophy of deliberately infecting your children when they are strong and can weather the disease better (most chickenpox deaths are due to complications and multiple infections at once).
What I cannot understand is how they can possibly think that this is safer than a properly designed vaccine.
They should all be arrested for trafficking in infectious diseases and thrown in federal prison.
Here is another reason not to mess around with this nonsense:
FTA: “Jerry E. Martin, the United States attorney in Nashville, where the tainted lollipops were advertised at $50 for overnight delivery, issued a warning last week that sending infected items “through the flow of commerce” was a federal crime, punishable by up to 20 years in jail.”