In the "old days' -- yes, when I was a child -- one of the kids in the neighborhood would get the chicken pox, or the measles or the mumps, one of the childhood diseases that was truly just a right of passage. Their parents would invite over the rest of us kids from the neighborhood to intentionally expose us so we would catch that childhood disease on purpose. (I know - seems odd - but it's true!)
Except some children got really really sick, and once in a great while, children or even adults who had never had one of those diseases as a child, would die. But that was extremely rare.
So vaccines were developed to protect children from those diseases.
Now some people are asking about the wisdom of throwing an H1N1 swine flu party. Does it make sense to expose ourselves to the swine flu while we are healthy? Would that provide us with an immunity for later?
Read what doctors and infectious diseases experts have to say about throwing a swine flu party. (Hint: save those party hats and noisemakers!)
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Learn more or join the conversation!
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