I love you to death

Because some people hate children so much they want to make them sick.

Millions of dollars are spent around the world every year trying to prevent children from getting sick. Medical research, education programs, vaccination programs, hospital facilities, public health initiatives and other projects exist, and are maintained, so that some of the most vulnerable people in the human communities we inhabit can be healthy, stay healthy and survive.

Some people want kids to get sick.

It's hard to believe, I know. Some parents will actively try and infect their own children with a vaccine-preventable disease in the mistaken belief that "natural" immunity (gained by catching a disease and letting it run its course, common complications and all) is somehow safer and more effective than being vaccinated (in which the same immunity is usually achieved with an almost infinitesimally small risk of dangerous effects). There are stories of "pox parties", where parents of a child infected with a vaccine-preventable disease will invite the children of other willing parents to gather together in the hope of exposure and infection. There are others where a dummy or lollipop that has been sucked or licked by an infected child will be enthusiastically shared by a parent with another child to facilitate the spreading of disease.

Most rational people think that making children sick on purpose is a horrendous thing to do.

Not Stephanie Messenger. Stephanie Messenger thinks it's a marvelous thing to do. So marvelous, in fact, that she's written a book that, as the promotional dross goes:

"...takes children on a journey to learn about the ineffectiveness of vaccinations and to know they don't have to be scared of childhood illnesses, like measles and chicken pox."

Titled Melanie's Marvelous Measles, this misguided turd of a book received a well-deserved drubbing by talented bullshit detector Tory Shepherd on news.com.au today, and a straightforward review by Skepticat earlier in the week.

It takes a special kind of love to treat your own children with such unfathomable disregard for their survival. I've tried to capture that special kind of love:

I want the very best for you, my child, as years go by.

I want to watch you play and grow,

And learn the things you need to know,

And tread where others fear to go,

And think, and wonder “why?”

But most of all, I hope you catch a bad disease and die.

I’d love to see your flawless skin pock-marked beyond repair,

With weeping sores, inflamed and red,

A throbbing pain inside your head,

Febrile convulsions in your bed,

And vomit in your hair,

Your throat constricted so you fight for every breath of air.

I want you to be paralysed and never walk again,

Your hearing to be almost nil,

Your lungs with fetid fluid fill,

Your heart to struggle, then be still,

Your body stiff with pain.

Encephalitis swelling your unknowing, tender brain.

Infection’s rife around us now - the time is opportune!

Don’t do what all the doctors say,

It’s really better Mummy’s way,

If all goes badly, that’s ok:

Dead children are immune.

Shush now and lick your classmate - It’ll all be over soon.