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From: jlh@loral.UUCP (Aiken Drum)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: 3 year old herpes patients
Message-ID: <740@loral.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 10-Jan-85 14:16:24 EST
Article-I.D.: loral.740
Posted: Thu Jan 10 14:16:24 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 14-Jan-85 01:13:06 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: The Many Coloured Cubicle
Lines: 57


I don't know if this is a good newgroup for this or not but I'm going
to put it here anyway.  I'm sure most of you read a newspaper and/or
watch the evening news.  One of the stories going around now is that
somewhere back east (that is, east of the rockies), there is a 3 year
old kid whose mother gave him herpes at birth by kissing him.  Now
this kid is trying to go to school but it seems that herpes is
contagious so all the other kid's mothers are keeping their kids out of
school.  School officials are trying to avoid spreading the desease by
making the kid (I'm going to call him Mikey, I don't know his real name)
wear clothes over all herpes sores on his body, and if one is on his face
or hands he can't go to school.  This isn't good enough for the mother's,
they keep their kids out of school anyway.  If I had a kid I probably
would do the same.

Now imagine how Mikey feels.  Here he is, through no fault of his own, 
destined to be a social outcast during his entire childhood.  I'm sure
we were all ostracized (sp?) at least once in our childhoods, but that
was a temporary thing lasting only for a few weeks or months.
Can you imagine how it would feel to go to class and find the classroom
deserted, all on your account?  One of his teachers even requested, and
got, transferred away from him on account that she has a skin desease
that made her more susceptible to catching the disease.

In school, everything Mikey touches has to be washed with soap and water
before anyone else can touch it.  This includes desks, pencils, glue 
containers, paints, blocks, fingerpaintings, etc.  I'm sure none of
us were ever so disliked that anything we touched was either washed
thouroughly or burned.

What kind of a person will Mikey grow up to be?  All his life he hasn't
had a single friend, in fact just the rumor that he will be somewhere is
enough to clear out the area.  This kid will probably grow up hating
the human race, and with good reason.  His chances of having a productive
and satisfying life are nil, he will most likely be a violent criminal
by the time he's 18.

My question is, what do we as a society do about this problem?  Mikey
isn't the only kid like this, there are others around the country.  
Should we send the kid to school and make the other kid's mothers 
send their kids there too?  Should we hire a private tutor for him?
Maybe we can have a special school somewhere for kids with herpes,
whose teachers have herpes also.  Or we could put him in a school for
kids with other contagious diseases.  I don't know the correct answer
but I think something should be done.  The facts are, herpes is
contagious, it can't be cured, and this problem is going to get worse
as more and more herpes patients have kids.  I really don't think
a kid should have this kind of cloud hanging over his head his
entire life, just as I don't think parents should have their kids
go to a school in which they are liable to get something as bad as herpes.


Jim Harkins 
Loral Instrumentation, San Diego
{ucbvax, ittvax!dcdwest, akgua, decvax, ihnp4}!sdcsvax!sdccs6!loral!jlh

And if elected I will put a wombat in every pot.