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)

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)


 * A late comment, but necessary none the less: "the vast majority of countries around the world don't have the same litigious culture as the USA". The subject of this article is pox parties, which in the case of measles will cause death at an approximate rate of 1 in a 1000 cases of measles. This is not "litigious culture": litigation would be a mild response to a completely avoidable death. Pwfen (talk) 04:51, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * And a late response to 146's comment, but Pox parties are not normal and are not a good way of ensuring childhood immunity to the varicella virus. It is a dangerous and foolhardy practice that should be completely abandoned. It's very irresponsible to do this. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 17:24, 8 November 2019 (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."

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)

Past medical situation
Recognizing that measles parties are a bad idea today, when many children will escape having measles altogether, were they a bad idea 50 years ago? Back then as the article says, parents knew these diseases were almost inevitable. I grew up hearing that it was better to have measles, mumps, etc as a child than as a grown up. I came here to learn if there was any truth to this. Colin McLarty (talk) 22:52, 14 June 2015 (UTC)


 * I realize this will cause misunderstanding. In my neighborhood as a child measles parties were a not a way to gain immunity.  The way you got immunity, for the rest of your life, was to get measles.  People said it was better to get them at elementary school age than older.  I want to know if there was any truth to that. Colin McLarty (talk) 23:06, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Pox party. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=3&cId=3143998 to

When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.

Cheers.—cyberbot II  Talk to my owner :Online 08:57, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

More on external links
Inclusion of the link-out to "cutaneous conditions" at the end of this article is simply a bad reference. None of the diseases listed (chicken pox, measles, and influenza) are easily understood or reasonably classified as cutaneous conditions. Chicken pox and measles are systemic diseases with highly visible cutaneous symptoms. Seasonal influenza is respiratory-only, and cutaneous symptoms are extremely minor or non-existant. I have deleted this unhelpful and strongly misleading link: Pwfen (talk) 13:34, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Bad Introduction
"Such parties, and similar means of deliberately causing infection, can be seen as an historical, cruder, forerunner to current vaccines, and are today typically organized by anti-vaccinationists on the premise of building the immune systems of their children against diseases such as chickenpox and measles (which can be more dangerous to adults than to children) or flu."

The quoted sentence is simply wrong. Pox parties are not a "historical, cruder, forerunner to current vaccines". Vaccines are produced to prevent disease, not cause it.

Pwfen (talk) 18:21, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I moved your post since, counterintuitive as it may seem, new posts actually go at the bottom. Tornado chaser (talk) 21:58, 28 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the move. Pwfen (talk) 03:32, 29 August 2018 (UTC)


 * I made this edit to make it more clear why someone would want to have a pox party, namely that certain diseases are more serious for adults than children, the current lead still acknowledges the three-way decision and still says that health officials discourage pox parties and recommend vaccination. Tornado chaser (talk) 15:37, 2 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I made the edit the way I did because "why someone would want to have a pox party" is called faulty thinking: the risk of death in every case is higher from the pox party than the vaccine. The fact that there was (past tense) a valid reason for pox parties is not relevant to the intro as written. Pwfen (talk) 02:16, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * . Tornado chaser (talk) 02:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree that pox parties are based on faulty thinking, but the article should say why antivaxers would rather give there kids a disease while there young than just hope they never get it. Tornado chaser (talk) 02:21, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Your modified text does not address the answer to the question you pose. Q: "Why antivaxers would rather give their kids a disease while their young ...". The answer is not what you wrote in the wikipedia entry. Pox partiers give their children a disease because they believe the vaccine is more dangerous than the disease. Giving it to them while young is intended to reduce harm: which is the exact opposite of what is achieved. Pwfen (talk) 04:36, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Do you think that this old version of the Intro to the Pox party article is substantially different from the current version ? Here is what I see: "Parents" becomes "social activity". "Parents who expose their children" becomes "anti-vaccinationists". A disclaimer from the medical community is added without elaboration as to why vaccines are better. And a comment is added about the illegality of shipping infectious material. I don't see any substantial improvement in the article between 2011 and the latest version . I have to concur with  in the posting  that the 2011 article is "totally irresponsible". There isn't much light between the current state and seven years ago as it relates to correctly presenting the harm reduction basis of vaccines, and the fact that pox parties are not harm reduction. Pwfen (talk) 05:14, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the recently added citations re measles and chicken pox. Just a thought, but is this article leaning a little towards original research? I think it would be helpful to find some reliable sources that explain the rationale of those who hold pox parties and then include those reasons with references. The reason in the lead is currently unreferenced and may not be the whole (or even the main) driver. Of course that perception should then be balanced with a referenced critical appraisal. Lineslarge (talk) 07:48, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * This article does need more refs, I will go look for those. Tornado chaser (talk) 14:19, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I have added a source to the lead and and made it more clear that antivaxxers are doing this mistakenly. Tornado chaser (talk) 14:41, 3 September 2018 (UTC)


 * and : (1) Versions of this article from several years ago were using citations to the NY Times, Washington Post, and LA Times to provide a documentary basis for the intent of modern pox parties (the intent is to avoid vaccination). The citations are still there. I don't believe it is correct to say that the article is unsourced in that regard. (2) The documentary basis of the historical intent of pox parties -- to cause disease at a younger age -- is more difficult do document because the contemporaneous scientific literature is quite sketchy. Major sequela of measles were not positively identified until after the advent of the measles vaccine, see Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (there are others, like an increase in all-causes mortality for two years after "recovery"). Other disease sequela such as shingles (for chickenpox) have been known for a longer time. In either case, most of the parties were informal affairs and I suspect will need citation to the non-scientific literature, making it harder to find appropriate citations. (3) On a positive note, the current version of the Intro has finally moved this article out of the realm of detracting from the sum total of human knowledge. Pwfen (talk) 18:10, 3 September 2018 (UTC)
 * How do you feel about the current state of the article? Tornado chaser (talk) 01:10, 4 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I think the intro text is acceptable, which quite frankly is a huge improvement. I think you did a good job of modifying things. I added a few citations, and will continue to make a few more citation-additions if I have the time over the next few weeks. Missing: cites to appropriate CDC measles pages. I know where to find them, but I should re-read... A good set of citations to historical pox parties is probably a bit more work, and represent an "opportunity". Pwfen (talk) 01:26, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Vandalism
There have been repeated attempts in 2019 to change the pox party article to remove words like "wrongly" and "mistakenly" from descriptions of why someone would believe pox parties are useful. The statement that pox parties are dangerous compared with vaccination is factual, and removing these descriptive words is an error, or vandalism. Pwfen (talk) 16:50, 23 March 2019 (UTC)

Past tense template
The tone of the entire entry makes it seem as if pox parties are a thing of the past when a cursory news search or glance at the cited sources indicates that they still occur. - CompliantDrone (talk) 19:26, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

Changed tense.
I changed the tense to past tense with a note that pox parties still exist today. Hope this is an improvement. The Council of Seraphim (talk) 00:25, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

I have no idea why it added the link to “List of cutaneous conditions.” Oh well. Anyhow, the last discussion states that it should sound more like pox parties still happen today. I’ll see if I can fix that. The Council of Seraphim (talk) 00:26, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Update: re-fixed tense
Fixed tense back to present. I fixed the tense issues as best I could. The Council of Seraphim (talk) 00:32, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Merge form COVID-19 party
I think COVID-19 party should be merged here. While corona topics are all the rage these days, COVID party is just the newest version of the pox party, a phenomena which existed before for a number of diseases. As such, I don't think it has stand alone notability. If we control for recentism bias and such, I don't think we can argue that COVID party needs a stand-alone article (it's long but not so long as to make the merge problematic). Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 11:17, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 17:26, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

Cost as major factor
in the UK the cost of the vaccine is given as the reason why vaccination is uncommon and children were encouraged to spread the disease. A few years ago the NHS said the cost per person was about 60£ per dose of vaccination which would translate to 4£ billion per year for the population. This is not mentioned and thus not criticised on this page. 2A04:4A43:415F:D2AB:0:0:93A:B54E (talk) 09:56, 2 June 2024 (UTC)