California public health officials are warning parents against "measles parties," saying that intentionally exposing unvaccinated children to a person with measles could put them at grave risk. 
 
 "Measles is a serious illness that can have significant consequences," California state epidemiologist Dr. Gil Chavez said in a statement, adding that 30% of people who have been infected in the current outbreak have been hospitalized. 
 
 Also, he said, such exposure could contribute to further spread of the California-centered outbreak, which has infected more than 100 people in eight states and Mexico. 
 
 Chavez issued the statement after KQED reported that a Marin County mother had been invited to expose her two young children to a child who had contracted measles. The mother, Julie Schiffman, whose 6- and 8-year-olds are not vaccinated, told KQED that she declined the offer. 
 
 The Times was not able to reach Schiffman on Monday and has not been able to confirm that any measles parties have taken place. 
 
 Marin County Public Health Officer Matt Willis said that although his office has received no reports of such parties, officials have fielded several calls from parents asking about the benefits of "natural immunity," or the idea that immunity gained from contracting a disease is superior to immunity conferred through vaccination. That concept is ill-advised and dangerous, he said. 
 
 Measles is a serious illness that can cause brain swelling, long-term neurological effects and even death, Willis said. Plus, he added, there is no evidence that immunity gained through becoming sick with measles is any better than vaccine-imparted immunity. 
 
 "Any parents who are considering this, they should have a look at a child who’s really sick with measles, and I think they’d change their minds." 
 
 Marin County has one of the state's highest rates of unvaccinated children under California’s personal beliefs exemption, and has the highest such rate of any county in the Bay Area. The latest county data show that 6.5% of kindergartners in Marin don’t have up-to-date vaccination records, down from 7.6% in the 2012-13 school year. 
 
 Willis and other health officials suspect the concept of a measles party may have grown out of "pox parties," which were popular in the 1980s, before the chickenpox vaccine was widely available. Some parents, reports said, even arranged to pay strangers for licked lollipops, saliva or other items from infected children. 
 
 The thinking was that children who were deliberately exposed to the disease at a younger age would become less sick and as a result be safer than if they contracted chickenpox as adults. 
 
 Willis said he still hears reports of “pox parties” occurring in Marin today, even though a chickenpox vaccine has been available for more than two decades. 
 
 Taking that approach to measles makes little sense, said Dr. Art Reingold, head of epidemiology at the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. 
 
 “The difference is we have a measles vaccine today, which is incredibly safe and highly effective,” Reingold told The Times. “It just doesn’t make sense to say I’d rather have my kids get the measles than the measles vaccine. That’s … based on misinformation that the measles is a benign childhood illness.” 
 
 In a statement, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said it does not recommend intentionally exposing a child to a person with measles. 
 
 For more breaking news, follow me @cmaiduc ||||| Health Officials Discourage ‘Measles Parties’ 
 
 Julie Schiffman is a mother of two in Marin County. The choice to not vaccinate her kids, now 6 and 8, was a long and difficult one, she said. But deciding whether to intentionally expose them to measles was easy. 
 
 “I would never do that to my kid,” she said. 
 
 She was approached recently by a friend who knew her kids were unvaccinated. The friend offered to help set up a play date with another child who was sick. 
 
 “She said, ‘I know someone who has the measles, would you like to be connected with them?’” Schiffman said. 
 
 Measles parties and chicken pox parties are practices that developed in eras before vaccines for those diseases were available. Both viruses are known to cause greater, more dangerous complications in adults. So some parents would intentionally infect their kids when they were young to work through the illness in its milder form, then retain immunity. 
 
 “People did this with chicken pox all the time,” said Art Reingold, an epidemiology professor at UC Berkeley who worked at the Centers for Disease Control in the 1980s. “Parents would have kids lick a lollipop and give it to other kids, or mail it to other kids.” 
 
 The chicken pox vaccine was licensed for use in 1995; for measles in 1963. Today, some parents are still deliberately getting their kids sick because they don’t believe in vaccines. 
 
 “The basic notion is ‘this is my opportunity for my kid to get immune the old fashioned way, the way God intended,’” Reingold said. “’The way nature intended.’” 
 
 Pockets of the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and rural areas in the far north of the state have an unusually high number of parents who opt out of vaccinating their kids. Public health officials are worried about what might happen if parents take it upon themselves to infect their children with measles. 
 
 “It unnecessarily places the exposed children at potentially grave risk and could contribute to further spread of the outbreak,” the California Department of Public Health said in an email, adding that it “strongly recommends against the intentional exposure of children to measles.” 
 
 Thirty percent of people with measles in the current California outbreak have been hospitalized. While measles is most dangerous in children under 5 and adults over 20, there can be serious consequences for kids, including pneumonia or hearing loss. A small number die. 
 
 Reingold says hosting measles play dates or parties is ill-advised. 
 
 “To me, it’s looney tunes,” he said. “We have a safe, effective vaccine, why would you do it?” 
 
 Julie Schiffman says she and her husband are willing to reconsider vaccinating their kids, but no evidence has surfaced to change their minds yet. She says she respects the choice of other parents who decide to expose their unvaccinated kids to measles. But she and her husband declined the opportunity. 
 
 “I would want that to be something they decide on their own, when they’re older and are more capable of assessing the risks and dangers,” she says. 
 
 “When they’re teenagers, I’d say, ‘okay, you have a choice, you can get vaccinated or you can get the measles, what would you rather?’” she said. “Then they have more say over what they do with their bodies. And I would respect their choice, whatever it was.”
– Are "measles parties"—where parents purposely expose unvaccinated kids to infected ones to build up immunity—a good idea? Some parents say yes, but California public health officials say absolutely not, the Los Angeles Times reports. According to a KQED blog post, Marin County mom Julie Schiffman received an invite from another mom to expose Schiffman's two unvaccinated kids to an infected child—she reportedly declined. The underlying reasoning is similar to chickenpox parties held decades ago: Some people believe it's safer for kids to build up "natural immunity" to a weaker form of the disease when they're younger than it is to introduce a vaccine into their bodies. Health officials say that claim is spotty—and dangerous. California state epidemiologist Dr. Gil Chavez says in a statement, "Measles is a serious illness that can have significant consequences," adding that 30% of those with the disease in the current outbreak have been hospitalized. Plus, Marin County Public Health Officer Matt Willis tells the Times, there's no proof immunity obtained naturally is better than vaccine-conferred immunity. Art Reingold, a UC Berkeley epidemiology professor and ex-CDC employee, points out that most "pox parties" took place years ago, before vaccines were widely available. "[Parents thought] this is my opportunity for my kid to get immune the old-fashioned way, the way God intended," Reingold tells KQED, adding, "It's looney tunes" to hold a measles party. Willis notes that while his office hasn't confirmed any measles parties taking place, he's received calls asking about the "benefits" of natural immunity. If scientific advice isn't holding sway, Willis has another suggestion: "Any parents who are considering this ... should have a look at a child who's really sick with measles, and I think they'd change their minds."