Parent DELIBERATELY infect their child with chicken pox? "Pox party" and "pox-tagrams" are making people sick!

It is the job of every parent to do the best for their children.

So what sort of misguided intent would lead a parent to DELIBERATELY INFECT THEIR CHILD with a communicable disease?

Yet that is exactly that hundreds, perhaps thousands of parents are doing... deliberately infecting their child with chicken pox by soliciting "pox-tagrams", which are packages mailed out by parents with child that is currently sick with chicken pox, containing items that can be used to INFECT OTHERS with chicken pox! (KPHO TV in Phoenix AZ report)

No, I am not making this up! Some parents are DELIBERATELY INFECTING THEIR CHILDREN by giving them candy laced with chicken pox virus!

What could have lead such parents to do such a crazy and ILLEGAL thing?

Recently, news reports out of Phoenix have covered a woman in the Nashville Tennessee are that is sending out pox-tagrams after being solicited through Facebook group called "Find a Pox Party In Your Area". (Read Reuters article)

The recipients of pox-tagrams are trying to avoid the chicken pox vaccine given to their children by deliberately infecting their children with chicken pox, solicited through the mail. The pox-tagrams are often used tissue or cotton ball with saliva and other items from the sick child, simply packed in a plastic zip bag. At other times, it's candy or lollipop licked by a sick child.

In fact, this woman in Teneessee is advertising INFECTED LOLLIPOPS for $50 EACH! (See article in Medical News Today)

Frankly, this is BEYOND STUPIDITY, for some very simple reasons:

• It is ILLEGAL to send viruses, germs, or any other bio-hazard material through US postal service, or any other carrier unless properly marked, labelled, and packaged. To the government, this is not that different from sending anthrax through mail! (albeit anthrax is a Class A biohazard, and chicken pox is class B, see USPS regulations 346.12a)
• In fact, the Facebook group WARNS you that you are indeed breaking the law by shipping such content without proper labeling!
• It is ILLEGAL to tamper with / adulterate food (even candy) with foreign agents! Violations can be prosecuted under FEDERAL law!
• You don't know if the stuff that arrived contains any OTHER nasty stuff, such as hepatitis, influenza, encephalitis, and other illnesses!
• In fact, doctors warn that a licked lollipop or spit don't have enough cells for the virus to live in, thus most of it would have died in transit, but MORE DANGEROUS virii and germs may remain! (see article on Huffingtonpost)
• There is no proven risk of vaccination! Child will get sick for NOTHING!
• Actual infection of chicken pox makes the child more vulnerable to "shingles" later in life! (read more about "shingles")
• Unless you quarantine your child immediately after infection until total recovery, your child is a source of infection even if s/he has no symptoms, and that infection can KILL young babies and people with compromised immune systems! (read more about "herd immunity")

Frankly, this is "cutting off the nose to spite the face"! To avoid the phantom threat of chicken pox vaccine, these parents are taking INSANE risks, not only with their child, but with OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES!

Legal and medical community are outraged by behavior of such parents! US attorneys in various jurisdictions are warning such parents: STOP, or you may face FEDERAL PROSECUTION! Medical doctors in Center for Disease Control (the HQ for all infectious disease research in the US) are horrified. Such an idea is... crazy! There is no proven risk of chicken pox vaccine, so why do such a stupid thing, with so many drawbacks, but no 'benefit' at all?

Frankly, this is medieval, in the most literal sense! People HUNDREDS of years ago, with NO understanding of vaccination, disease propagation, or proper medicine, would do such a thing. But in the modern age with wonders of modern medicine? What sort of madness is this?!?!?!

This is idiocy in the utmost degree!

Some stupidities are self-correcting, such as the "Darwin-Award" nominee sort (where the stupidity is enough to clean the perps out of the gene pool).

Other sorts of stupidity, that affects others, muchless one's own CHILDREN, is appalling beyond contemplation.

And such madness must be stopped.