November 7, 2011

Deadly Candy

NPR has been running a story that reveals the stunning idiocy of the counter-culture.
...a woman in Nashville, Tenn., advertised lollipops contaminated with the
varicella virus on Facebook. The tainted pops were intended for parents
who want to expose their children to the disease.
The theory is rather than inoculate your children to prevent them from getting the disease, just give them the disease.  Since victims of chicken-pox won't get it a second time, there is some unfounded belief that surviving the disease gives you a better immunity from the disease than a vaccine that prevents you from ever having it.

Which is actually really stupid, since one of the complications of chicken pox is death.

Of course, dead people don't get chicken pox again, either.  Or anything else.

This kind of stupidity was brought on by the hoax that claimed that vaccinations caused or were implicated in causing autism.  But that was, in fact, a hoax.  Every subsequent study indicates that vaccines have no part in autism, and in fact, do what they are supposed to do - prevent the onset of deadly diseases.

The belief that you can protect your children from getting a deadly disease by actually giving them the deadly disease  is akin to believing you can protect your children from getting shot by shooting them.

If you want your kids to be healthy, get them vaccinated.  It works better than anything else.