The epic facepalm in video form above comes from KPHO in Phoenix, Arizona. The news station learned of a Facebook group where anti-vaccination zealots were hooking up to mail chicken pox infected items to parents who wanted to intentionally give their kids chicken pox. Because giving a kid a potentially deadly illness (and putting them at risk for shingles later in life) is totally a better idea than just, you know, using the vaccine which has a much, much lower rate of complications than getting the disease. Hence the reason vaccines exist. You know, the whole saving lives thing these douche canoes stubbornly ignore while clinging to completely-discredited fraudulent studies and insisting chicken pox is no big deal because, hey, it didn’t kill them when they were kids. (Maybe it should have.)
And here’s another problem (among many) these child abusers didn’t consider:
Well, for starters, they’re breaking the law. Varicella is classified in biosafety risk group 2, meaning the those working with it must be trained in how to handle it and follow certain protocols to prevent inadvertently letting it out into the environment. In order to ship material like this, the sender must be trained in proper packaging and handling of the material, and trained carriers with a permit can transport the package. Clearly, though, the law does not matter to these twits, since in response to someone pointing out that it was a Federal offense, one woman answered: “Tuck it inside a zip lock baggy and then put the baggy in the envelope :) Don’t put anything identifying it as pox.” [Harpocrates Speaks via Bad Astronomy]
The smiley face lets you know she’s a trained biohazards expert.
The Arizona TV station learned that lollipops and rags tainted with chicken pox infected saliva had been mailed from Arizona to California, Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia, and Canada. Anyone along the way — mail sorters, drivers, postal carriers — may have been exposed to whatever disease(s) were in the saliva. If any of those people had a compromised immune system (or later came in contact with someone with one, like, for example, an infant) these Facebook loons may have killed someone. Also, who the hell accepts a slobbered-on lollipop from a stranger and jams it into their kid’s mouth? What. The. Eff?
And it gets worse. At least two wonderful parents on the Facebook group were looking for measles, mumps, and rubella in order to infect their kids. The World Health Organization says measles is the number one cause of vaccine-preventable child deaths, but, yeah, both of you go ahead and infect your kids with it on purpose. That’s just great. A pox on both your houses.