I was a bit perturbed to hear on the radio this morning that apparently some parents (it’d be bad enough if these were adults doing it to themselves) are throwing “Swine Flu Parties” if their youngster comes down with H1N1, so all the other parents can bring their own child to get infected. W. T. F. What kind of parent would intentionally infect their child with the flu (any flu)? Influenza (yes any influenza is hardly benign. It’s miserable no matter what and high fevers can be deadly, especially in children.
I get the idea behind the Chicken Pox Parties, apparently much better than the parents throwing Swine Flu Parties do, or the distinction between chicken pox and swine flu would be obvious to them. You throw a chicken pox party, because it’s incredibly likely that a person will become infected with the chicken pox at some point in their lives, and if that infection happens as a child, the resulting illness is less painful and more manageable (usually requiring no treatment, unlike an infection in an adult).
Flus are different on two counts. First, a person is more likely to NOT become infected with any given strain of Flu than they are TO be infected. I’ve never had a flu shot in my life, and while I think I may have had a Flu as a child, I’ve certainly never had one as an adult (knock on wood). And because the most prevalent strains of flu vary year to year, if you’re fortunate enough to avoid a strain of flu during it’s peak time, you’re even less likely to get it in the future. If you take your child to a Swine Flu Party, you’re exposing your child to a virus that they may otherwise have never come across otherwise. Sure, they’ll gain immunity to it, but only after suffering through the very illness you’re hoping to avoid. I don’t have actual numbers but, for the sake of argument, let’s say your child has a simple 50-50 chance of contracting H1N1 flu without your intervention. If they don’t get it, then they didn’t need the immunity in the first place; and if they do get it, they will have the immunity from that point forward. If you intentionally get your child infected they have a 100% chance of getting H1N1 flu (clearly some children will have a natural immunity or simply won’t pick up the germ, even at a party, so it’s not truly 100% but for ease of discussion). So you’ve effectively destroyed your child’s chance at being flu-free for no measurable.
But let’s say H1N1 is especially hardy and hangs around as a dominant influenza strain for a long time. Not much chance that your child will “miss the bullet” if H1N1 hangs around that long, right? So what? There is no benefit to being infected early. In fact, there’s a good argument that you’d be better off getting it as an otherwise healthy adult than as a young child. The argument that H1N1 might come back with a vengeance later (so why not get it while it’s mild) is spurious as well because if they virus mutates enough to be significantly more dangerous, there no guarantee that your immunity is going to be any more effective to the new strain than it would be to any other strain.