November 7, 2011 9:20 AM

Mailing "chickenpox lollipops" called illegal, risky

By
David W Freeman
Topics
News ,
Kids and family ,
Disease

chickenpox, chicken pox, generic, 4x3 (Credit: istockphoto)

(CBS/AP) Fear of childhood vaccinations has some parents paying to have a stranger send lollipops and other items purportedly licked by kids with chickenpox, but a federal prosecutor says that in addition to being a bad idea, it's illegal.

PICTURES: 10 deadly myths about childhood vaccines

Jerry Martin, U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, made the comments after hearing reports this week from KPHO-TV in Phoenix and WSMV-TV in Nashville about people turning to Facebook to find lollipops, spit or other items from kids 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.

Isaac Thomsen, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, said it's unlikely the items will succeed in giving other children chickenpox.

"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."

But the lollipops could carry more dangerous viruses, including hepatitis, Thomsen warned.

Martin said it is a federal crime to send diseases or viruses across state lines, whether through the postal service or private services like FedEx. Sending the lollipops is illegal under the same law that makes it a crime to mail contagions like anthrax. onviction could lead to a sentence from less than a year to 20 years in prison, he said.

Martin said the items are sought by parents who don't want to give their children vaccines. He would neither confirm nor deny that his office is investigating or seeking charges against anyone.

TTV reports have said parents have turned to a Facebook group called "Find a Pox Party in Your Area" to link up people looking to share the virus.

One of the Facebook postings from Wendy Werkit of Nashville offered a "fresh batch of pox in Nashville shipping of suckers, spit and Q-tips available tomorrow 50 dollars via PayPal."

Werkit told WSMV that the money was used to pay the shipping costs of the lollipops had been licked by her children.

"They can't get (chickenpox) the normal way anymore of just naturally catching and just naturally getting the immunity for life," Werkit said.

Thomsen, the Vanderbilt physician, said he was even more concerned by a person in the KPHO report seeking items tainted with measles to avoid a school-required vaccination. Measles has a significant mortality rate, causes more complications and is very infectious compared with chickenpox, he said.

And law enforcement won't take any such cases lightly, Martin said.

"If you are engaged in this type of behavior, you're not only potentially exposing innocent people to dangerous viruses and illnesses and diseases, you're also exposing yourself potentially to federal criminal prosecution," he said.

Chickenpox is a viral infection that causes itchy blisters all over the body. It's caused by the varicella-zoster virus, the same one that causes herpes zoster (shingles) in adults.

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10 deadly myths about childhood vaccines

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Add a Comment See all 22 Comments
by httpwwwnews November 8, 2011 8:49 AM EST
Two things...
These parents think they are protecting their children from Autism by not vaccinating. That's ignorance, Autism is a brain/communication disorder with research beginning to indicate genectic causes.

Anyone who has already had Chicken Pox can get a serious case of Shingles after exposure, to an active case of Chicken Pox or from the contagious pre-eruption phase.

I had it happen to me and I was pretty upset about it. I work at school and I broke out in Shingles after helping a child with school work, who broke out with Chicken Pox a few hours before I erupted with Shingles.

Is it fair to take irrational fears to the point of endangering others health? No. These parents need to quit their inquision/witch hunt tactics against medicine and support Autism reseach instead of endangering their children and people around them with their hare-brained ideas.
Reply to this comment
by formerusmcsgt1 November 8, 2011 5:29 AM EST
by erasmus111 November 8, 2011 3:52 AM EST
Most childhood diseases can be life-threatening.
-----

As usual, you shoot off your yap without knowing what you're talking about:

The CDC admits that children don't die from chicken pox per se, but rather....

articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/03/17/chicken-pox.aspx
Reply to this comment
by formerusmcsgt1 November 8, 2011 6:04 AM EST
http://www.vaclib.org/basic/gk/CHICKEN%20POX.html
by Aquaria40 November 8, 2011 4:58 PM EST
You're a moron.

You linked to pseudoscientific GARBAGE.

Chicken pox can kill. It went into my brain and my heart. There was talk about operating on my heart if the swelling didn't go down there. I was only 10, and I was out of school for over three months.

If my mom hadn't been a nurse who knew what to look for when chicken pox spread to internal organs, I would have been DEAD. As it is, my physician is 75% certain that my multiple sclerosis came from this one infection.

Chicken pox is nothing to mess with, and science-illiterate buffoons like you are a danger to society. You should be locked up for being so stupid and deliberately spreading dangerous LIES.
by askagain November 8, 2011 12:27 AM EST
Earlier this evening, I was reading the Autobiography of Ben Franklin. He mentioned that he lost a four-year-old son to smallpox and regretted not innoculating him against smallpox. This was in the 1700's. Curious, I did some research on innoculation. In the early and mid 1700's, it was not unusual to inject a person with the smallpox germ. Usually, that person would get a mild case of smallpox and develop an immunity getting it again. In the late 1790, people started using cowpox which was less risky.

Then, I read this article about "chickenpox lollipops." It seems what goes around comes around. Are the chicken pox lollipops a throwback innoculation practices of the 1700's? My concern is that people don't know what they are getting. At least modern vaccinations are produced under comtrolled conditions by drug companies. It is your choice.
Reply to this comment
by askagain November 8, 2011 12:30 AM EST
correction


Earlier this evening, I was reading the Autobiography of Ben Franklin. He mentioned that he lost a four-year-old son to smallpox and regretted not innoculating him against smallpox. This was in the 1700's. Curious, I did some research on innoculation. In the early and mid 1700's, it was not unusual to inject a person with the smallpox germ. Usually, that person would get a mild case of smallpox and develop an immunity to getting it again. In the late 1790, people started using cowpox which was less risky.

Then, I read this article about "chickenpox lollipops." It seems what goes around comes around. Are the "chickenpox lollipops" a throwback to innoculation practices of the 1700's? My concern is that people don't know what they are getting. At least modern vaccinations are produced under comtrolled conditions by drug companies. It is your choice.
by givemeaminute November 7, 2011 8:20 PM EST
Besides hepatitis what about AIDS? And a host of who knows what? These parents are just plain stupid. I'm sure the parents were vaccinated and they lived through it without any harmful after effects, their kids most likely will too. Some people are past stupid... way past.
Reply to this comment
by formerusmcsgt1 November 7, 2011 8:04 PM EST
by debbie1120 November 7, 2011 4:33 PM EST
Now I think I heard it all. I had chickenpox twice, yes twice, mild or major case doesn't mean crap. It is still a pain in the butt to have Chicken pox. Why would anyone want to catch this or have their child catch this?
---
There are those who contend that the increase in asthma in recent decades may well have something to do with the immunological system not being as robust for having to deal with typical childhood disease.

Personally, I think it may have some merit.

Would I buy this crap and give it to my daughter, no.

But I am investigating the science behind the contention very seriously.

If it means a significant reduction of the probability of immune defficiencies later in life, we may well choose not to have her innoculated against non-life-threatening childhood diseases.
Reply to this comment
by erasmus111 November 8, 2011 3:52 AM EST
Most childhood diseases can be life-threatening.
by msay3 November 7, 2011 5:49 PM EST
Those parents are nuts!!!
Reply to this comment
by 1notrub11 November 7, 2011 6:21 PM EST
You're being MUCH too generous
by debbie1120 November 7, 2011 4:33 PM EST
Now I think I heard it all. I had chickenpox twice, yes twice, mild or major case doesn't mean crap. It is still a pain in the butt to have Chicken pox. Why would anyone want to catch this or have their child catch this? If you can't afford the vaccination, all you have to do is go the your local health unit and pay a small amount for a visit and get the shot. The public school system here requires this vaccine. Is this not a requirement everywheres?
Reply to this comment
by jumkey November 7, 2011 3:42 PM EST
These parents are reacting to a very real threat: the vaccine is making childhood chickenpox a thing of the past. Why this is bad is because for children CP is inconvenient but not life threatening...for adults it could very well be fatal, and there is no evidence that the vaccine offers lifetime immunity (unlike having had the disease itself).

It is a very real possibility that either there will be a deadly chickenpox epidemic among vaccinated adults OR the need for lifetime boosters - all for a disease that currently poses no real threat. If you can't see the monetary benefit to the company who created and markets this vaccine then you aren't paying attention.

Finally, deliberately inoculating a person with a virus to gain immunity is a proven solution to viral infections, although it is not without risk. In the case of chickenpox the risk to the child due to complications is *far* less than the risk of adult chickenpox.

These parents are making reasonable health decisions for their children.
Reply to this comment
by afmcalax November 8, 2011 9:07 AM EST
Society hopes you remain childless. Parents with logic like yours are truly dangerous to the rest of us. Your lack of scientific credibility is astonishing. This anti-science/ anti-medicine mindset many Americans are embracing is leading us back into the 19th century.
by cntrygirl3 November 7, 2011 2:43 PM EST
Anyone who would willingly expose their child to a disease is guilty of child abuse and should be arrested and the children removed from their care. By exposing their child to chicken pox they expose them to the risk of shingles later on in life, a very painful and debilitating disease. These people are unfit parents and there are no words to describe the people mailing this stuff just to make a buck.
Reply to this comment
by Jaylah54 November 7, 2011 1:06 PM EST
I remember, as a child, some parents taking their kids to "chicken pox parties" because there was no vaccine for chicken pox back then, and a lot of parents wanted their kids to get them early when it's usually not as big a thing.

We also had quarantine signs that folks had to put up on their doors when a kid living there had been diagnosed with chicken pox (or measles or mumps, or whatever).

When one of the kids in our neighborhood got chicken pox, I remember my mother considering taking my brother and myself to their "chicken pox party" and then deciding against it.

A while later, I got just a tiny bit sick, and our pediatrician told my parents that I *might* have chicken pox. We knew I had it for sure when, 14 days later (the incubation period of chicken pox), my brother came down with one of the worst cases our pediatrician had ever seen. (One of the very few times in my life that I ever got one over on my brother.)

Why, oh why on earth would any logical, rational person try to *give* their kids a disease when there's a vaccine for it?
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