contagions...

ok, so.....my middle child and i made the short round of goodwills today, with a lunch at j-beth midway for good measure......lots of great buys....including a moss green linen dress that matches my beads from last week.....and a pair of black kitten=heeled slingbacks that look like they were barely worn.....it was not until the beaumont plaza store that we saw the girl with a visibly contagious viral disease.....could have been measles...could have been chicken pox...but this child was clearly unimmunized against what we used to call a childhood disease and was now paying the price......she looked no more than 7 or 8....hispanic...which only partially explains the lack of immunization....now that school systems require certain milestone shots at the beginning of school and again in the 6th grade.....objector-parents simply home-school.....which leaves their children vulnerable.....and though i can say that having the chicken pox, the measles and the mumps when i was young did not scar me for life.....those children with compromised immunity sometimes do not recover from these infections.....having just read the wikipedia version of measles...i learned that measles is actually a respiratory virus that affects the lungs more so than the skin......who knew?.....i felt sad for the parents, who either do not know that this is a contagious disease, or have no options...given that many clinics will not treat non-residents......we are already seeing a resurgence of tuberculosis.....another contagious disease most likely to infect the underfed/underimmunized/vulnerable population .....driving these folks underground is not the answer....