Taking Swine Flu Into Your Own Hands
This May 7 New York Times article reports on the wisdom -- or rather lack of wisdom -- of swine flu parties. Like chicken pox parties, the theory behind these events is to mingle healthy people with an infected person, thereby passing on a hopefully mild case of the disease and conferring immunity.
In the case of swine flu, experts have been warning that the so far mild bug circulating in the United States this spring might return as a nastier pathogen this fall. Some people studying the 1918 flu outbreak have speculated that anyone who had been infected with that flu bug early in the outbreak was likely better off than those infected later.
Even so, members of the public now experimenting with any form of the swine flu virus are playing with fire, say the experts. We don't know enough yet about the virus to risk it serious illness, and who knows how the virus might change in more hosts.
What do you think?