I’m pretty sure the anti-vaccination crowd is seriously deluded. Some of them are so scared of vaccines that they prefer to give their children immunity to diseases the old fashioned way: By giving them the disease itself.
The usual way to do that is with a “pox party”: Wait until one child in your circle of anti-vax fanatics gets the chicken pox, and then bring all your kids over so they’ll be infected too. It’s okay, you know, because it’s natural.
But what if you don’t have any friends who have the disease? Via Radley Balko, the AP’s Erik Shelzig reports:
Parents fearful of vaccinations are being warned by a federal prosecutor that making a deal with a stranger who promises to mail them lollipops licked by children with chickenpox isn’t just a bad idea, it’s against the law.
Jerry Martin, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, said he was spurred by reports this week by KPHO-TV in Phoenix and WSMV-TV in Nashville about people turning to Facebook to find lollipops, spit or other items from children who have chickenpox.
“Can you imagine getting a package in the mail from this complete stranger that you know from Facebook because you joined a group, and say here, drink this purported spit from some other kid?” Martin told The Associated Press.
If you’re thinking this might be a good idea, let me see if I can change your mind. Maybe you’re not daunted by the fact that it’s illegal. (It’s a crime to send chickenpox through the U.S. mail for the same reason it’s a crime to send anthrax through the U.S. mail.) And maybe it doesn’t bother you to intentionally infect your child with a disease. And maybe you’re not going to concern yourself about other people who might catch the disease from your deliberately disease-ridden child. Heck, maybe you don’t even mind the fact that doctors say it won’t work — after all, they’re the ones who wanted to vaccinate your kids, right?
In that case, let me see if I can still head you off by telling you what I think the U.S. Attorney is hinting at when he dropped the word “purported” into that sentence: When a stranger on the internet sends you lollipops so that your child will lick them, it’s because he jerked off all over them. And now he’s jerking off at the thought of your child licking them.
I know that’s a disgusting thought, and probably only a handful of perverts are sick enough to get off on something like that. But by now, every single one of them has a website offering free lollipops.
When I was a kid, a local youth came down with chicken pox and his mother offered to infect the rest of us so we could “get it out of the way.” My mother was horrified by this and we both ran the other way and I never got chicken pox.