BAD IDEA! - Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook

[Shiloh]

Source: http://www.kpho.com/story/15896021/cbs-5-investigates-mail-order-diseases

CBS 5 Investigates mail order diseases
Posted: Oct 27, 2011 10:00 PM EST Updated: Oct 27, 2011 10:28 PM EST
By Morgan Loew - email

PHOENIX (KPHO) -

Doctors and medical experts are concerned about a new trend taking place on Facebook. Parents are trading live viruses through the mail in order to infect their children.

The Facebook group is called "Find a Pox Party in Your Area." According to the group's page, it is geared toward "parents who want their children to obtain natural immunity for the chicken pox."

On the page, parents post where they live and ask if anyone with a child who has the chicken pox would be willing to send saliva, infected lollipops or clothing through the mail.

Parents also use the page to set up play dates with children who currently have chicken pox.

Medical experts say the most troubling part of this is parents are taking pathogens from complete strangers and deliberately infecting their children.

One concern is that they are sending the virus through the mail.

A Facebook post reads, "I got a Pox Package in mail just moments ago. I have two lollipops and a wet rag and spit." Another woman warns, "This is a federal offense to intentionally mail a contagion."

Another woman answers, "Tuck it inside a zip lock baggy and then put the baggy in the envelope Don't put anything identifying it as pox."

"This is dangerous", said Dr. A.D. Jacobson, the chief of ambulatory pediatrics at Phoenix Children's Hospital. He said chicken pox is extremely contagious and is something he would never recommend you send in the mail...

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook investigated

Re: Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook investigated

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...nity-illegal/2011/11/04/gIQAgje9mM_story.html

Prosecutor warns parents wary of vaccines: Mailing chickenpox so kids develop immunity illegal
By Associated Press, Published: November 4

NASHVILLE, Tenn. ? Parents fearful of vaccinations are being warned by a federal prosecutor that making a deal with a stranger who promises to mail them lollipops licked by children with chickenpox isn?t just a bad idea, it?s against the law.

Jerry Martin, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, said he was spurred by reports this week by KPHO-TV in Phoenix and WSMV-TV in Nashville about people turning to Facebook to find lollipops, spit or other items from children who have chickenpox...

 

[Shiloh]

Re: Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook investigated

Re: Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook investigated

Source: http://www.wreg.com/news/wreg-doctors-speak-out-against-mailing-chicken-pox-20111104,0,6843308.story

Home > News
Doctors Speak Out Against "Mailing" Chicken Pox
(Click source link above to access video and story)

Bonny Kinney
8:44 p.m. CDT, November 4, 2011

 

[Shannon Bennett]

Re: Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook investigated

Re: Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook investigated

Chicken pox is not a virus you want running through a community. I have four personal horror stories. The first was my adult husband contracted the virus why serving in the military. Because of his adult status he suffered very high fevers, scarring and a later disease directly related called shingles. The second and third were my sister and daughter were both exposed to the virus while pregnant. My sister lost her full term baby boy and my daughter her twin daughters. The fourth was a great aunt who was exposed by an nursing aids infected son while my aunt was in a nursing home. She said she had to bring him to work because she couldn't find anyone who would watch him since he was covered in pox. Aunt Kathleen suffered greatly and died directly from the disease. This is SO not something you want to introduce into your community as a live virus. What may seem harmless to kids may not be so harmless to others.

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook investigated

Re: Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook investigated

I agree. A really bad idea.

 

[sharon sanders]

Re: BAD IDEA! - Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook

I took a look at the page. Evidently it is an effort to avoid the chicken pox vaccine. We do not take a position about the vaccine. But mailing disease through the mail is a bad idea. "Disease parties" are a bad idea too.

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: BAD IDEA! - Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook

I think that active virus dispersal through mail or other means could represent an attempt to public health and should be criminally prosecuted.

In many countries childhood diseases such as Varicella, Measles, Mumps and Rubella, as well as Diphteria, Polio are notifiable diseases and subjected to home quarantine for the affected patients until resolution or hospital discharge.

Varicella-Zoster virus are particularly infective and it is present in higher amount in vescicles, pustules and crusts so that touching these things represents for a susceptible individual a quick way to be infected.

Route of inoculation may play a role in the severity of this disease, and people should avoid to touch contaminated material to avoid dispersal into environment.

It is useful to remind that some environments are much more susceptible to serve as amplifier than other, for example: large inmate communities (jails, insane asylums, migrants identification centres), nursing homes, primary schools, etc.
(IOH)

 

[Giuseppe]

Re: BAD IDEA! - Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook

[Source: Huffington Post, full text: (LINK).]

Mailing Chickenpox Lollipops And Other Infected Items Is Illegal, Prosecutor Tells Parents



‎5 November ‎2011 | The Huffington Post News Editors


NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Parents fearful of vaccinations are being warned by a federal prosecutor that making a deal with a stranger who promises to mail them lollipops licked by children with chickenpox isn't just a bad idea, it's against the law. Jerry Martin, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, said he was spurred by reports this week by KPHO-TV in Phoenix and WSMV-TV in Nashville about people turning to Facebook to find lollipops, spit or other items from children who have chickenpox.

Read More...
More on Video
​

- ------

 

[JimO]

Re: BAD IDEA! - Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook

Sending and accepting body fluids from a complete stranger is simply foolish. There might be far worse pathogens tagging along, like hepatitis or even HIV.

lf you are reading this thread and considering doing this, think carefully of the risks.

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: BAD IDEA! - Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook

What Not To Buy Online: Lollipops Laced With Chickenpox

by Nancy Shute

Excerpt:
State health officials were horrified at the prospect, and pointed out that not only is the varicella vaccine much safer for children than getting the disease itself, but spreading the virus could pose a serious risk to children who can't be vaccinated because they are undergoing cancer treatment or have other health problems.

Deaths caused by chickenpox have plummeted since the vaccine was introduced in 1995, according to a study published in July.
...
As a result of the media coverage, the Facebook page "Find A Pox Party Near You" where the Tennessee woman advertised her wares is now running this disclaimer: "This page is to find a CHICKEN POX (only) party near you. ABSOLUTELY NO SENDING VIRUSES THROUGH THE MAIL. This will not be tolerated and will be deleted immediately. Local only."

Back in 2005, the American Academy of Pediatrics' Dr. Sarah Long talked to NPR about just what a bad idea those parties are compared to the vaccination. "The notion that you would willingly expose your child to the naturally virulent strong virus when there is the opportunity to have a virus in its weakened form that's as immunogenic just makes no sense to me whatsoever," she said.


Full text:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...e-lollipops-laced-with-chickenpox?sc=fb&cc=fp


<!-- END CLASS="BUCKETWRAP BYLINE" ID="RES142098712" PREVIEWTITLE="BYLINES" -->

 

[Pathfinder]

Re: BAD IDEA! - Mail order childhood viruses via Facebook

Minn. parents seek out chicken pox

Posted: December 9, 2011 - 7:58pm

DULUTH (AP) ? Leah Schroeder?s youngest child, Fynn, had the best breakfast of his 14 months one morning just before Thanksgiving.

?I had my little guy suck on a sucker, which he thought was the coolest thing that had ever happened,? the 29-year-old mother of three said.
Schroeder was hosting a ?pox party? in her Harbor Highlands home.

Another mom stopped by, bringing her young child. The hope was that the other child would catch chicken pox from Fynn, who was in the midst of the itchy illness. Although chicken pox is highly contagious and easily transmitted through the air, the children shared a sucker to heighten the probability.

Schroeder is part of a loose network of parents in the Twin Ports who choose what they call ?natural vaccination.? Rejecting the chicken pox vaccine as unnecessary and not always effective, they look for opportunities to expose their children to other children with the disease.
...
The anti-vaccine movement comes from a new generation of parents who have no memory of what life was like before vaccinations, Van Etta said.

?Vaccines are kind of the victim of their own success,? she said. ?We don?t see children dying of diphtheria; we don?t see children dying of tetanus in this country.?

And concerns about vaccines are overstated, Van Etta argued.

?Are there side-effects to vaccines? Absolutely,? she said. ?You can get a sore arm. You can get a low-grade fever . but all of those side-effects are very mild and very infrequent compared to coming down with the natural disease.?

Full text:
http://brainerddispatch.com/news/2011-12-09/minn-parents-seek-out-chicken-pox