You’re all Invited.…to a Swine Flu Party??

My friend Jennifer over at ReedWhatMatters​.com posted a great resource for deter­min­ing whether or not you have the H1N1 virus a cou­ple of days ago that can be found here. After read­ing it, I decided to browse the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) web­site. It offered a vari­ety of top­ics on swine flu and how to pro­tect your­self from get­ting it and also spread­ing it. While edu­cat­ing myself on the H1N1 virus I came across the FAQ:

What is CDC’s rec­om­men­da­tion regard­ing “swine flu par­ties”?

I don’t know about any of you, but I had never heard of a swine flu party. Here is how the CDC defines a swine flu party:

“Swine flu par­ties” are gath­er­ings dur­ing which peo­ple have close con­tact with a per­son who has 2009 H1N1 flu in order to become infected with the virus. The intent of these par­ties is for a per­son to become infected with what for many peo­ple has been a mild dis­ease, in the hope of hav­ing nat­ural immu­nity 2009 H1N1 flu virus that might cir­cu­late later and cause more severe dis­ease.

Obviously this is a new trend that has been widely accepted by many as a method to avoid the con­tro­ver­sial H1N1 flu shot. It reminds me of when I was in the sixth grade and had the chicken pox (Chicken Pox, Mad Cow, Swine flu…I’m start­ing to detect a farm ani­mal theme here. A lit­tle too Old McDonald had a farm E-I-E-I-O…don’t you think?) Many kids of course wanted a week off so when I came back to school one of the girls asked me to rub my arms on hers so that she could get it. I didn’t believe it would work, but lo and behold the next day she was absent and stayed gone for a week. This must be the same con­cept behind these swine flu par­ties. The think­ing is that you can get immu­nity from the virus or just get it and get it over with. This is what the CDC states though:

CDC does not rec­om­mend “swine flu par­ties” as a way to pro­tect against 2009 H1N1 flu in the future. While the dis­ease seen in the cur­rent 2009 H1N1 flu out­break has been mild for many peo­ple, it has been severe and even fatal for oth­ers. There is no way to pre­dict with cer­tainty what the out­come will be for an indi­vid­ual or, equally impor­tant, for oth­ers to whom the inten­tion­ally infected per­son may spread the virus.

CDC rec­om­mends that peo­ple with 2009 H1N1 flu avoid con­tact with oth­ers as much as pos­si­ble. If you are sick with flu-​like ill­ness, CDC rec­om­mends that you stay home for at least 24 hours after your fever is gone except to get med­ical care or for other neces­si­ties. (Your fever should be gone with­out the use of a fever-​reducing med­i­cine.) Stay away from oth­ers as much as pos­si­ble to keep from mak­ing oth­ers sick.

So if you receive an invi­ta­tion to a “swine flu party” exer­cise cau­tion. As the CDC states some have expe­ri­enced mild symp­toms with this virus while oth­ers have become deathly ill. Let’s be smart and pro­tect our­selves as much as pos­si­ble from this virus that is def­i­nitely ful­fill­ing what the Bible describes at Luke 21:11 as “pesti­lences in one place after another”. Unfortunately swine flu will likely not be the only virus of its kind to plague us so it’s good that we develop good dis­ease pre­ven­tion prac­tices now. I won­der what farm ani­mal the next thing will be named after? Hoof and Horse dis­ease? Diabetic Duck Virus? Silent Lambs pox? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Photo credit: Zazzle​.com

Thanks for read­ing,