Miscellaneous Forum

I heard recetly that groups of mothers have been arrangig 'swine flue parties'. The idea is that if a couple of children get it then they can transmit to all in the group. The hope is that they then get the flu...recover..and thus build up a resistence before the swine flu mutates and comes back stronger in the winter.

Is this a pragmatic response or blind stupidity ?

I don't know, but doubt if I'd take that route with my child
seems a bit extreme, but....

I've heard of people doing this with the chicken pox... but I think a better way to deal with H1N1 would be to make sure the kids get all their nutrients and build up their immune systems.

Don't know if it will work with a virus, but many years ago before there were inoculations for all of the childhood diseases my mother and all the neighbours did it.

Every time one of us children got measles or chickenpox or mumps, all the rest of us would be sent over to the sick child's house to play. We all got all of the childhood illnesses over and done with at 5 or 6 years old. In those days that was often a live saver...

Chances are that kids who know each other will pass on the virus at school/playgroup etc simply by playing together. As with all diseases, you are infectious before you actually know you have H1N1. No need for special parties, imo.

Hi leics,
That new ppp is interesting. Where is it?

just had a peek. oh! it IS though

Photo courtesy of Swanet, PJ's wife and PJ (who photoshopped-away some of the water droplets)......it's a superb pic, imo (not the part with me in it!).

It's in the front courtyard of the Palacio Nationale in Sintra. I was having a sit-down, watching sundry VT-ers mingling in the street below. :-)

>>>Is this a pragmatic response or blind stupidity ?

IMO, this is blind stupidity.

We can't always protect our children from the ills of the world. It is true that our child might be infected before we are aware that their playmates have a contagious illness, but we should at least try.

To intentionally introduce infection, swine flu or any other, is at least neglect and at most abuse. If our child should be the rare one to die from the infection, wouldn't it be murder?

According to a news article I recently read, it's blind stupidity. It could allow the germ to mutate into a more dangerous strain, and there are no controls guaranteeing that the case of flu developed will be a mild one.

Nomad, that too is a great point!

This sounds like a new Urban Myth.

Yes, it's blind stupidity. I have never known anyone with the remotest understanding of infection and immunity to believe in this practice, which is common in the middle classes of the UK.

As for swine flu - the situation is laughable. This is a mild illness. The UK government is doing its best to create something of a panic in suggesting that 100000 new cases per day are possible. They are suggesting that they are working very hard to get enough vaccine ready for the end of August. In fact, that's the usual timescale for fluvac production.

I have seen the government letter to clinicians in the last 24 hours. They want doctors to apply a flu diagnosis to everyone who says they have had a temperature of 38c or more, plus two of the following : joint pain, cough, runny nose, headache, diarrhoea. Or pneumonia. Well, with criteria as broad as those, they are fishing for as many cases as they can invent.

Then sometime at the end of the year, we will see the formal announcement that "Desperate of Fife" has saved the World. Again.

We all got all of the childhood illnesses over and done with at 5 or 6 years old. In those days that was often a live saver...
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ps play that game with mumps, and mothers of little boys could easily see their chances of grandmotherhood go straight out the window...

As I understand it, and I am not a medical person, it was said then that it was preferred that boys got the mumps before puberty for just that reason.

They did it with whooping cough too. Only Scarlet Fever was considered too dangerous to play with and those children were isolated.

Remember, back then the only antibiotic available was penicillin and that was still largely available only to the military - I'm talking late 1940's...

It is also my understanding that mumps is very unpleasant indeed in a 'mature' male.....so I can see whay one might want one's little lad to catch it early on.

I always got my childhood illnesses around my birthday. My birthday parties were cancelled, even if I was not very poorly (cue violins), so obviously the idea of 'bug-catching parties' did not appeal where I was brought up.

Mumps orchitis can cause just the same damage pre-puberty. To deliberately expose a child to whooping cough is foolery: you just ensure the child has a serious illness. The reality is the vast majority of cases of scarlet fever are not serious illnesses, so it is no more dangerous to expose a child in this way than it is for the other infections, but the whole policy is just a bad one.

Wonder how much of your current knowledge was known 60+ years ago...

I just got my vaccines... the only typical childhood disease I had was chicken pox, which I got right before Valentine's Day when I was in second grade.

Scarlet fever used to be a killer, James.

Even when I had it (in the 1950s) it required isolation hospital treatment (my mother fought this, and was allowed to keep me at home with a disinfectant-soaked blanket outside my bedroom door and everyone washing their hands in disinfectant before coming in/when leaving). It made me very ill indeed and, afterwards, I peeled just as if I'd had a severe case of sunburn and needed a proper recuperation period (in Wales) and 'tonics'.

It is a virus which has weakened over the decades, and is not now anywhere near as dangerous as it once was....mostly appearing as 'scarletina'. Now, it's just a mild illness in the vast majority of children but in the 1950s, and earlier, it certainly was not.

I believe that mumps orchitis is much less common in pre-pubertal males, and less likely to do lasting damage.

Yes. that is how I remember it too. I was not in the UK - have never lived there - but the only deaths among our little friends that I can remember was from Scarlet Fever.

It is an unusual virus for a childhood illness, because it really has weakened substantially over the past few decades and no longer poses a threat in most cases.

http://www.patient.co.uk/health/Scarlet-Fever.htm

Scarlet fever isn't a virus - it's a bacterial infection. It's quite true that it is a less dangerous infection than it once was, as it can be treated with antibiotics, but it was less frequently the killer infection of popular repute, even though some people did die. Still like you say, pretty nasty. Looks like you had a classic case of it :(

It's true that mumps orchitis is less common in children, but it occurs not infrequently, and where severe can lead to sterility.

The real argument against these infection parties is that they are simply dangerous. Where's the benefit if your child is one of those who are sterilised by mumps? What have you achieved if you suddenly need to face the reality of chickenpox being an infection of the nervous system and your child develops shingles of the eye, rather than chickenpox and is blinded? Or develops chickenpox and is one of the unfortunate few who is left brain-damaged by encephalitis?

I agree about infection parties, James .....seems entirely unnecesary to me. Children will be exposed at their playgroup/nursery/school to everything going around anyway. If they are too young, then they are too young to be deliberately exposed, imo.

Apols for getting my viruses and bacteria muddled.

But Scarlet Fever really was something to be worried about in the 50s (despite penicillin being available), and earlier. Strange how it is no longer such a potent bacterium.

Possibly not that surprising. One fairly well established theory about the host-pathogen relationship is that the infectious organism will tend to become less virulent over time.

Also, selection by antibiotics might have some odd effects. Let's invent a scenario: say that there are two strains of Streptococcus pyogenes (the bacteria responsible) one causes serious illness and is coincidentally very susceptible to antibiotics. The other causes mild illness but is quite resistant to antibiotics. This second one is more likely to survive in the host population. Doing less damage, but multiplying quite happily.

I don't say that's the reason for the apparent changes in Streptococcus pyogenes, but just an indication of how bacteria can change rather quickly.

Makes sense though.

I do remember bits of having Scarlet Fever (I was very young......5 or 6, I think). It really was not a pleasant experience.

I don't think I would deliberately have exposed my children to any virus. Seems to me people are increasingly unaware of the potential dangers of even 'childhood illnesses'.........we are becoming complacen. Measles is a good example in the UK. I had that too, very badly indeed (and remember quite a lot, even though I was only 4). Parents do not realise just how bad measles can be, even with antibiotics.

I think its a blind response and pragmatic stupidity!

I concur. ~

Someone once said "Don't underestimate the stupidity of large groups of people"....so true

I also have vague memories of having mumps on my fourth birthday. Its' the first birthday I remember. I recall the painful swollen glands, but as far as I am aware I had no orchitis. The arrival of Infant Son three years ago indiates no damage done, anyway.

Interestingly (to me anyway) one area with the lowest vaccine uptake in Scotland is the west end of Glasgow. This is where there is the highest level of educational attainment in the city, where academics and media types work and live. And it's the most educated who are refusing immunisation. Seems a degree is no guarantee of wisdom.