The concept has been around for decades. During a particular season, when children are being felled by viruses, hold a “party” to expose healthy children to the strain of virus so they all get sick at the same time. Additionally, they all develop immunity, lifelong in many cases. It’s been done with the chickenpox (before the vaccine was developed), and now, the idea of a swine flu party is being floated.
Bad idea, says Dr. Richard Besser, and other experts who have been the media and behind the scenes experts involved in this new H1N1 flu pandemic. Though the virus appears no more virulent than the current flu strains we are familiar with, it still means the potential to kill more than 36,000 people here in the United States, if it were to become significantly disseminated. Experts also caution that this flu virus could mutate and become more virulent and dangerous, and it currently is causing complications like sinusitis and pneumonia. Even though there is the potential now to produce a vaccine, a world wide serious pandemic, with hundreds of thousands of potential victims could outpace the number of vaccines that could be produced. And young, healthy people are dying from this particular flu strain, so it is certainly not innocuous.
Most experts have gone so far as to use the term “insanity,” when asked about the idea of a swine flu party. Doctors say you cannot compare the swine flu to the chicken pox, which though considered a familiar and less dangerous virus, still has the potential to cause serious complications in children and adults. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not yet posted a position or recommendations on this new approach to the current pandemic.
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