Saturday, November 17, 2007, Vaccinate or go to jail at the point of a gun. Parents with their children are forced hearded into a courthouse at the threat of imprisonment to vaccinate children for Chicken pox and Hepatitis B. Patrolling the scene was a SWAT team of policemen with dogs.

ONE DAY last month, I awoke to an e-mail from a mother in my 15-month-old son's playgroup, with a subject line of "chicken pox." It alerted the other six families in the group that her son had been exposed to chicken pox two weeks earlier, and that he had now contracted it. I was concerned that she hadn't told the ...

Teenagers could be given a raft of vaccines to protect them against conditions ranging from chicken pox to cancer, experts have said.

AUSTIN - Visions of a virus spreading from child to child in a crowded elementary school classroom make it easy for state officials to require kids to be vaccinated against measles, polio or chicken pox. A mandatory vaccine against a cancer-causing sexually transmitted disease is proving to be a tougher sell in statehouses around the country.

A few years ago one of my good friends got shingles a couple of months after she had had her baby. She said it was excruciating pain and was out of work for 6 months because of it. My daughter just got her chicken pox vaccination and for some reason it just reminded me of my friend and the ordeal she went through. So, I thought I would complete....

Chickenpox is one of the five classical childhood exanthems or rashes, once a cause of significant morbidity and mortality, but now chiefly of historical importance. Formerly one of the childhood infectious diseases caught by and survived by almost every child, its incidence had been reduced since the introduction and use of a varicella vaccine in 1995 in the U.S. and Canada to inoculate against the disease. Areas such as England, where the vaccine is not mandated, have increasing prevalence rates for chickenpox. Chickenpox is caused by the varicella-zoster virus (VZV), also known as human herpes virus 3 (HHV-3), one of the eight herpes viruses known to affect humans. It starts with conjunctival and catarrhal symptoms and then characteristic spots appearing in two or three waves, mainly on the body and head rather than the hands and becoming itchy raw pox (pocks), small open sores which heal mostly without scarring.Chickenpox has a 10-21 day incubation period and is highly contagious through physical contact two days before symptoms appear. Following primary infection there is usually lifelong protective immunity from further episodes of chickenpox.Chickenpox is rarely fatal (usually from varicella pneumonia), with pregnant women and those with a suppressed immune system being more at risk. Pregnant women not known to be immune and who come into contact with chickenpox may need urgent treatment as the virus can cause serious problems for the fetus. This is less of an issue after 20 weeks.The most common complication of chicken pox is shingles; this is most frequently a late effect.