Talk:Pox party

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: ^[1] Pwfen (talk) 13:34, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

"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)

@Pwfen: 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)

@Pwfen: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)

@Tornado chaser: 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)

@Pwfen:. 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)

@Tornado chaser:: 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)

@Tornado chaser:: 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 @Contributions/98.210.156.174: 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)

@Lineslarge: This article does need more refs, I will go look for those. Tornado chaser (talk) 14:19, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

@Pwfen: 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)

@Lineslarge: and @Tornado chaser:: (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)

@Pwfen: How do you feel about the current state of the article? Tornado chaser (talk) 01:10, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

@Tornado chaser: 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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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| reply here} 11:17, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

  Y Merge completed Klbrain (talk) 17:26, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

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)

Reference 22 to the Nephin article (Nephin, Dan (October 19, 2001). "Chickenpox Parties Aim for Kids to Catch Disease, Avoid Vaccine") is incomplete and doesn't indicate where the article was published. Web searches for that specific title circle back to this Wiki. It's possible that this should be Seattle Times article "You’re invited to: chickenpox party! (no gifts, please)", Dan Nephin, Associated Press, October 19, 2001 which is not currently available online to confirm.

This reference is the entire supporting basis for two statements in the History section of this Wiki. GeSalt (talk) 08:04, 29 August 2024 (UTC)