Measles Parties

by JASmius



I actually don't know what all the fuss is about on this one:

California public health officials are warning parents against “measles parties,” saying that intentionally exposing unvaccinated children to a person with measles could put them at grave risk. “Measles is a serious illness that can have significant consequences,” California state epidemiologist Dr. Gil Chavez said in a statement, adding that 30% of people who have been infected in the current outbreak have been hospitalized.

Also, he said, such exposure could contribute to further spread of the California-centered outbreak, which has infected more than hundred people in eight states and Mexico.

Chavez issued the statement after KQED reported that a Marin County mother had been invited to expose her two young children to a child who had contracted measles. The mother, Julie Schiffman, whose 6- and 8-year-olds are not vaccinated, told KQED that she declined the offer.

I'll freely admit, the idea of "getting it over with" by deliberate exposure is more than a little....counter-intuitive.  But there are some diseases - measles and mumps are the primary examples - that are much less severe and/or have much less severe physical consequences when contracted as a child versus as an adult.  Indeed, my own late mother did that very same thing with me when I was a year old and my cousins came down with mumps.  It was, in essence, a "do-it-yourself" vaccination.

Which, again admittedly, seems difficult to square with a distrust of actual vaccinations which do essentially the same thing.  But by the same token, isn't it more than a little hypocritical of government "health officials" to warn against "Measles parties" but call for mandatory immunizations?  Especially when their refusal to control our borders helped reintroduce these previously eliminated diseases in the first place?