The anti-immunization crowd is goddamm insane.

Apparently, some of these nuts are sending pathogens through the US mail.

PHOENIX (KPHO) -

Doctors and medical experts are concerned about a new trend taking place on Facebook. Parents are trading live viruses through the mail in order to infect their children.

The Facebook group is called "Find a Pox Party in Your Area."

(artist's rendition, "pox party.")

I know this is not a new strategy, exposing young kids to chickenpox in the hope that getting it young will be less horrible than getting it at a later date, but these geniuses aren't just exposing their kids, they're exposing everyone who works at the post office, too.

On the page, parents post where they live and ask if anyone with a child who has the chicken pox would be willing to send saliva, infected lollipops or clothing through the mail.

And hopefully, the parents of the sick child can tell that it is just chickenpox that their kid has, and not something more serious, which is a dicey proposition since these parents don't have their kids immunized against anything. 

Medical experts say the most troubling part of this is parents are taking pathogens from complete strangers and deliberately infecting their children.
One concern is that they are sending the virus through the mail.
A Facebook post reads, "I got a Pox Package in mail just moments ago. I have two lollipops and a wet rag and spit."

  

This is dangerous", said Dr. A.D. Jacobson, the chief of ambulatory pediatrics at Phoenix Children's Hospital. He said chicken pox is extremely contagious and is something he would never recommend you send in the mail. Children can encounter complications like encephalitis and skin infections when they're introduced to the disease.
In rare cases children can die from not getting vaccinated. Dr. Jacobson said that he had a child in the hospital that died at 14 months due to chicken pox pneumonia. 

Oh, that's just pro-immunization propaganda!  That's what the keeping-children-from-dying-industrial-complex wants you to think.

"If you have a young child over to your house specifically to get chicken pox, I don't think anyone would like to really consider what would happen if that child ended up being hospitalized," said Elizabeth Jacobs from the University of Arizona College of Public Health. 

Oh, I wouldn't worry. I'm sure these parents don't believe in hospitalization either.

Anyway, it's just chickenpox, right?

Right?

CBS 5 producers found others asking for more dangerous pathogens. Two people on the Facebook page were looking for measles, mumps, and rubella. 

-UCK, These anti-immunization nuts
are goddamm insane!

Have you heard about Mary Ann Morgan?

Probably not.

I just happened to stumble across a story about Mary Ann Morgan on Media Matters, which is odd, since she is not a media figure. As it turns out5, Mary Ann Morgan is a "sovereign citizen" militia nut from Alaska who was arrested at the Canadian border with an illegal firearm and detailed instructions on creating homemade  explosives and the bio-toxin ricin. Thank you, Canadian Border Patrol!

  

(artist's rendition)

This is the second ricin-related militia arrest this month, which would seem to make it a big story, but so far. . . not so much.

In fact, I did a Google-News search for Mary Ann Morgan, and this is what I got:

The Alaska Dispatch, the National Post, and TPM Muckraker. There were a few more, but no New York Times, no CNN, no ABC, CBS, or NBC. Shouldn't this be a bigger story?

Here are a couple details from the story:

Morgan told Canadian border guards she was headed for a meeting about the U.S. Constitution being held in Montana, according to Canadian law enforcement sources in the Yukon Territory.

She was bringing bomb-making instructions and ricin information to a militia-nut convention. In MONTANA! The militia-nut capitol of the world.

His motion to deny bail also takes into account a recent online posting to the Alaska Citizens Militia forum in which a "Mary Morgan" announced, "I am looking for 'combat training' that is not related to the military."


The motion identifies Morgan as secretary of the sovereign citizen Alaska Peacemaker Militia, part of a movement rooted in racism, anti-government extremism and bizarre conspiracy theories that is growing nationwide as part of an ongoing surge in right-wing militia activity. 

Now imagine if a Muslim person had been been arrested  with bomb-making instructions, anti-US-government literature, and information about producing ricin. And imagine this was several days after a group of four Muslims had been arrested while planning to kill a bunch of people in Georgia, also with ricin. Would you think that might be a front-page story? And well it should be. But as long as the perps are right-wing "Christian" Americans, apparently we're not supposed to be all that concerned about them. I guess they're more afraid of the teabagger backlash? Like after the Justice Department memo which warned about this sort of thing and for which they demonized Janet Napolitano.