A shocking story was published recently by the Telegraph in the UK regarding American parents who have been caught selling chickenpox-infected lollipops to other families who want their children to catch the virus at a young age rather than at an older age when the virus can be more dangerous.
The idea of parents wanting their children to catch the virus at a young age is not a new phenomenon, and many take part in what is known as Chickenpox parties (pox parties) where parents bring their unvaccinated children together at the house of an infected child in order for their child to catch the virus too. However this latest craze has gone a step further and sees parents, such as Wendy Werkit, a mother in Nashville, Tennessee, who used a Facebook page intended to promote 'pox parties' to post her own message offering of ‘fresh batch of pox in Nashville shipping of suckers, spit and Q-tips available tomorrow 50 dollars via PayPal’. These lollipops are licked by children infected with the virus, and Wendy considered this a logical alternative for children who she claims ‘can't get [chickenpox] the normal way anymore of just naturally catching and just naturally getting the immunity for life’.
Tennessee prosecutors have been forced to issue a warning that sending viruses or diseases by post is illegal, after parcels of the infectious sweets were discovered on sale. US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, Jerry Martin condemned the practice stating ‘If you are engaged in this type of behaviour, you’re not only potentially exposing innocent people to dangerous viruses and illnesses and diseases, you’re also exposing yourself to federal criminal prosecution’.
A specialist in paediatric infectious diseases in Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital in Tennessee, remarked that it is unlikely that the items would succeed in passing on the virus, stating: ‘If there’s a very high load on the virus and shipped very quickly, it’s theoretically possible’, he said, ‘but it’s probably not an effective way to transmit it. It typically has to be inhaled’. And he warned that lollipops could carry more dangerous viruses such as hepatitis. Even more worrying for Thomsen however, were the reports of incidents where people where looking for lollipops infected with measles to avoid vaccination, as measles has a significant mortality rate, causes more complications and is highly infectious in comparison to chickenpox.
