Parents Use 'Pox Parties' To Sicken Kids

[Guest guest]

"As physicians, we have looked at the data over and over again, and studies have shown all vaccines are safe."Liar, liar, pants on fire. Click on the link to access comments/video.

Winnie

(http://www.kmbc.com/r/27812935/detail.html)

Parents Use 'Pox Parties' To Sicken Kids

Doctor: Practice 'Dangerous' In Vaccine Era

POSTED: 1:46 pm CDT May 7, 2011UPDATED: 7:14 am CDT May 10, 2011

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Some parents are arranging to deliberately expose their healthy children to children with chicken pox. These so-called "pox parties" are designed to help ensure that the healthy children contract the disease. "They play together, sometimes swap shirts and share drinks," said parent Hartman. "Just to kind of get as much contact as they can."

Hartman said she's trying to find a pox party for her children to attend. Her older children got the vaccine, but her third daughter had a terrible reaction. "Every time she'd go in for shots, she had eczema really bad," Hartman said. "Basically, her legs, from her diaper to her feet were like alligator skin." Hartman said that's when she started searching for a pox party, even starting a Facebook page to find one. Pediatrician Dr. Leonard Pittala said pox parties are dangerous but not new. "Actually, it was popular years ago, before we had the vaccine, and people just wanted to expose their kids," Pittala said. He said parents want children to get the disease when they are younger because it hits adults much harder. Pittala said that with the effectiveness of the vaccine now, pox parties don't make sense. "It may be shifting to more popularity because of all the talk and the fear of vaccines," Pittala said. "As physicians, we have looked at the data over and over again, and studies have shown all vaccines are safe." Pittala said chicken pox is extremely contagious and can be spread from sneezing or simple contact. He said parents need to be aware that complications from chicken pox can be deadly. "(Patients can get) life-threatening pneumonias and brain swelling," he said. Vicki Clubine brought her daughter, Emma , in for the second round of the vaccine. She said she couldn't believe people hold pox parties. "When you can just get a shot and be done with it, that's just crazy," Clubine said. Hartman said she knows there are critics. "We want to do what's best for our children," she said. "Catching chicken pox is actually the best way to get a lifelong immunity from it." Pittala said there's some truth to that, because the vaccine is not 100 percent effective. He said that's not a good enough reason to risk the complications that could come with exposing children at a pox party.

[Guest guest]

Boy haven’t we heard that before.. ‘when you can just get a shot”. Like that is going to solve everything! Nita, mom to: 18, Jon 16, 14, 12, 9, Christian (7/16/03 to 8/22/04), 5, Isaac 3 and , born 3/1/11http://momof6.dotphoto.com for possibly current pictures and http://nitasspot.blogspot.comLearn from the mistakes of others. Trust me... you can't live long enough to make them all yourself. _