Talk:Pox party

Merge

Consider merging this article into Inoculation. --Una Smith (talk) 19:25, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

History of this article

This article was merged into Chickenpox in March 2006 but the merge was not stable; see the history of this talk page for details. --Una Smith (talk) 19:32, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Pox partying is bad

Don't do it. There are a few fundamental things wrong here. Pox parties are evil. End. Not telling your kids about it is more evil. You must be honest if you want them to be honest: otherwise you will:

  a) be a dishonest hypocritical person
  b) lose trust and respect if they find out
  c) violate a fundamental rule.

Good leaders lead by example: they are honest and their kids and colleagues and employees are honest too. Plus, they don't have any grudges or tension inside them, and they know what to expect. Benefits outweigh the risks here. Bad leaders lead by fear and hypocrisy, power and dishonesty. Resentment and grudges build up, and also a desire to know the truth. Only the most perfect parents can pull this off perfectly without leaking the wrong information to their children. The kids know about punishment and their subservience, but once they find out they are being fed false information, their anger and resentment gets all the worse: think of the African slave trade. Sometimes, the slaves will rebel and group together, and fight for their freedom out of anger, fear and disgust. There are too many risks here, but unfortunately lots of people don't realize this.

Better still, get the vaccine. The vaccine is essentially a weakened or dead version of the real thing. YES, you may need booster shots (but not very often: once every two decades is negligible), but NO it isn't as risky as you may think, because it is still the same virus, nothing else. And its less severe, obviously, and therefore less itchy and annoying. The real thing, however, can, and has, killed.

NOTE: there is another version of a vaccine, which injects antibodies into the systen instead of viruses, but the antibodies won't last long and instead these "vaccines" are used in the short term as a "warning" to the immune system that something big is about to come, like a particularly large army of varicella zoster viruses. These aren't actual vaccines, they are just antibodies there to help in the "war effort" against the virus armies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by HawkFromHell (talk • contribs) 13:10, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Uh oh... I forgot to sign --LOLCat talk 04:22, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject (much less other subjects). See WP:TALK for more. Grover cleveland (talk) 15:45, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Whoops. Okay I understand now. Thank you!--LOLCat talk 04:51, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

article is totally irresponsible as it stands

Some responsible person with more time than me should edit this article to make clear that: (1) this would be seen as child endangerment if not child abuse in most jurisdictions (I say this as an attorney); (2) hosting one of these introduces substantial civil liability risk for the culprits (see above); (3) the chicken-pox virus causes long-term complications in a non-trivial portion of individuals who are infected; and (4) acute exposure to high viral load levels, such as via deliberate exposure, increases the severity of most viral illnesses.

I am constantly amazed at the stupidity of the human species. 98.210.156.174 (talk) 05:20, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

These claims should be added only by someone who has, in addition to free time, reliable sources to back up the claims. Grover cleveland (talk) 18:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Mr. Cleveland, maybe you didn't hear him; he's a LAWYER.74.10.227.130 (talk) 16:44, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Not sure what's going on here, but you may want to consult No Legal Threats, Legal Disclaimer and Medical Disclaimer. If you have a reliable source that some jurisdiction has taken legal action against a parent who took their child to a pox party, by all means add it. If you have a reliable source claiming that it does constitute child endangerment/abuse, then please add that. The claims of an anonymous editor do not count as a reliable source, even if that person does have legal training. Grover cleveland (talk) 20:34, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Also it should be noted that Wikipedia is international in outlook and the vast majority of countries around the world don't have the same litigious culture as the USA (in mine, for example, you are not allowed to sue for personal injury). Pox parties are normal, common, and a good way of ensuring childhood immunity is gained through early exposure to non-lethal viruses around here! 146.171.254.97 (talk) 22:49, 6 July 2011 (UTC)

Medical views

Do people concerned with public health have a view on pox parties? Notwithstanding the things said above about the practice being dishonest as far as dealing with your children goes, exposing parents to civil liability etc, are they regarded by experts as irresponsible, sensible or not worth saying too much about, from an epidemiological point of view? Beorhtwulf (talk) 23:25, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Please come out and actually say which one's safer

Something like this.

Milhouse of Sand and Fog: "Doctors are actually against the idea of pox parties that was used in this episode, claiming people should get the chickenpox vaccine instead as a safer alternative.[1]"

71.58.190.78 (talk) 08:49, 16 July 2011 (UTC)

Pox Party Also See Section

I am unclear why in the also see section bugchasing is included. Bugchasing is the act where an HIV negative man seeks to have sex with HIV positive partners in order to become infected with HIV. Although there maybe similar parallels to pox party I dont think they have enough to do with each other to warrant the links. As the diseases are completely different and the party activities are different. Another major difference is that a Pox party is not a child's choice and in bugchasing it is the choice of the individual. MrWikiGay (talk) 23:34, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

vaccination "controversy"

So called "vaccination controversy" has been debunked as fraud! only idiots believe that kids will get autism from vaccination. 50.9.109.170 (talk) 10:24, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

This story was for MMR. For chicken pox vaccine there is indeed concern because the vaccine loose effectiveness later in life, when the disease is much less benign.199.102.158.171 (talk) 15:10, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

NPOV Issues!

From the first sentence "A pox party, or flu party or flu fling, is a dangerous activity exposing children to deadly virus thus risking their life." this article FLAGRANTLY violates Wikipedia's commitment to a neutral point of view! I'm not a wiki contributor, and I know you folks hate it when people without ties to the community do anything, so could someone with some political clout fix this crap? Please? I'm adding the template now in the hope of attracting someone. 98.86.217.86 (talk) 19:03, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

I've altered the intro. Though I'm not sure what you're talking about ("hate it when people without ties"). If you had the capacity to add a template, you should've also made the change, since as far as I can tell only the intro was a big example of NPOV violation. (Simulcra (talk) 23:19, 17 November 2011 (UTC))

Mothering Link is Bad

The putative Mothering Magazine link at the end of the article actually directs to Mothering Magazine's discussion forums. It does not link to any particular article on vaccines (or anything else). 76.4.187.97 (talk) 01:15, 6 March 2015 (UTC)