By Brian Wheeler
BBC News, Washington

Vaccination has effectively wiped out many diseases in the developed world

US authorities have warned parents that posting infected lollipops to other families who want their children to get chickenpox is against the law. But why are the parents doing it?

The news that some parents have been apparently posting saliva-soaked tissues and licked lollipops to each other in an attempt to spread chickenpox among their children has been greeted with widespread condemnation.

Doctors have cautioned that licking a supposedly infected lollipop is unlikely to pass on chickenpox – which is mostly an airborne virus – but could expose a child to other, more serious ailments.

And Jerry Martin, US attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, warned that anyone attempting to send so-called “pox packages” through the mail would be breaking federal laws against shipping biohazards across state lines.

The Facebook page on which parents were discussing “pox packages” – Find a Pox Party In Your Area – has now ceased to exist.

The idea of allowing your child to catch chickenpox – perhaps by taking them to pox parties – to avoid getting it in later life when it can be more serious, is not a new one. But the use of the postal service and social media represents a new phase.

So why do parents do it?

Meg, who until recently ran a Facebook page called Find a Pox Party Near You, told BBC News: “My son had a life threatening reaction to his vaccinations. He developed chronic encephalitis, seizures and a 105.7-degree temperature. He was never the same after those vaccinations.

“Our children’s doctor advised me to never vaccinate my other children because I would run a high risk of them having the same kind of reaction.”

She said she had been forced to shut down her page after the backlash over the lollipop story, even though she had carried a prominent warning against sending pox packages through the mail “because we have known that it has been going on for years”.

She intends to continue facilitating “pox parties” away from the glare of the media, after compiling a database of interested parents.

In the US, unlike in the UK, children are vaccinated against chickenpox. It is one of nearly a dozen inoculations that American youngsters must undergo – exemptions apart – by the time they reach the age of six.

That’s twice as many as their counterparts in the UK, where public concern over childhood vaccines has largely died down after the work of Dr Andrew Wakefield, linking the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism, was discredited.

Dr Wakefield was struck off the medical register by the General Medical Council last year after it found him guilty of serious professional misconduct over the way he carried out his research.

It is a different story in the US, however, where a celebrity-driven campaign against vaccines has kept the issue in the public eye.

Movie action hero Chuck Norris is the latest well-known name to weigh in to the debate, in an article for a conservative website.

Some parents object to what they see as the dictatorial nature of the US vaccine programme, which, they argue, leaves them little choice over what is being put into their children’s bodies.

Campaigner Robert Schecter, who runs the Facebook group Proud Parents of Unvaccinated Children, claims the pharmaceutical industry is a key driving force behind the growth in childhood immunisation in the US.

“By no means is it a conspiracy, but there are vested interests working together,” he says.

A self-styled libertarian, who ensured his own daughter did not receive any vaccinations, he dismisses public health officials as “paternalistic do-gooders” who “get satisfaction out of what they believe to be helping people” when in fact they are doing no such thing.

Vaccination sceptics like Mr Schecter can produce reams of statistics which they claim show public health officials have exaggerated the seriousness of diseases and “covered-up” safety concerns.

They even dismiss figures from the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention that cases of measles tripled last year, pointing to the fact that were there still only 220 cases and no deaths. The disease is also on the rise in Europe, where there were 29,000 cases and nine deaths in the first seven months of 2011.

“There is a very great deal of scepticism and questioning out there. Part of it comes from the very great success of vaccination programmes,” says infectious diseases expert Dr William Shaffner, of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee.

Some sites warned against sending ‘pox packages’ but were still targeted by public anger

“The current generation of young mothers have very little experience of disease.

“Even the experience they have had of chickenpox has been with a much less severe form, with fewer complications. It is seen as a relatively transient illness not worthy of much respect.”

But, he argues, chickenpox and measles can both still be very serious diseases, particularly if there are complications.

And he blames the Andrew Wakefield case for undermining public confidence in the US and the UK, even though it is a decade since the MMR scare hit the headlines.

“It is impossible to unring a bell. There are still many people who believe that vaccines and, in particular, the measles vaccine, is linked to autism.

“The whole controversy fuelled a general scepticism about vaccination and a belief that the ‘the natural way is the best way’”

Sympathy

And he adds: “The internet plays a substantial role, particularly among upper middle class, young mothers, who are used, in their professional lives, to researching things on their computers.

“Unfortunately, they can not always make a clear distinction between information and misinformation.”

The scientists who strived to develop vaccines to common diseases “would be aghast and scratching their heads as they attempted to understand how this extraordinary boon, which along with clean water is one of the most effective public health interventions of the 20th Century, could be denied,” says Dr Shaffner.

But, at the same time, he says he does have a “a great deal of sympathy and understanding” for vaccination-weary parents in the United States.

“There is a debate about whether we have come to the limit of what we might call the pincushion effect on children, because there are a lot of jabs.”

Redbridge is among the London boroughs sharing £260m to provide more school places

London schools are to share more than half of an England-wide allocation of £500m government funds to tackle a shortfall in pupil places.

Schools in the capital received £260m of a £500m Department for Education funding package.

The amount of money to be allocated was calculated using figures provided by local authorities.

A Department for Education spokeswoman said: “Funding is given based on greatest need.”

“London has some of the greatest need for extra school spaces in the country due to population growth,” she said.

The London boroughs of Redbridge, Waltham Forest, Brent and Barking and Dagenham will receive the greatest amounts.

The funding came from savings made after the government halted school capital projects under the previous government’s Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme.

Michael Gove urged local authorities to target resources at managing shortfalls in pupils places wherever they were most needed, taking into account the views of parents.

He said it is “especially pertinent” following data released last week by the Office for National Statistics showing that previous projections for population growth were underestimated.

Mr Gove has also announced that he will fund any proven contractual liabilities of local authorities who brought a judicial review against his decision to axe BSF, which included the east London councils of Waltham Forest and Newham.

However, he has ruled out funding any other outstanding capital commitments scheduled under BSF.

Now, slowly, activity is resuming.

Perdido is the world’s deepest drilling and production platform. Operated by Shell, it lies 200 miles out into the Gulf, off the coast of Texas.

Our Industry correspondent John Moylan has been behind the scenes at Perdido to find out how the operation works.

The world’s first business computer, Leo, is celebrating its 60th birthday.

Frank Land, who was involved in the Leo project, explains how the computer filled a huge room, had 6,000 valves, and “generated a lot of heat” – if not that much computer power by modern standards.

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Three Chinese soldiers who fled their barracks armed with a rifle and hundreds of bullets are reported to have been killed.

A fourth soldier who also fled from the Jilin city base was captured by police, state media reported.

The deaths were confirmed by officials on a microblog website, and the escape was reported by the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily.

But later, reports on both websites appeared to have been removed.

The government frequently takes down news stories and blog posts in a process dubbed “harmonising” by web users.

As of Thursday, the website of state-run outlet Chinese Radio International still had a report describing the incident.

It said the four soldiers – aged between 18 and 23 – had been trapped by police in Yingkou city, about 300 miles (480km) from Jilin.

Three were shot and killed at the scene, and the fourth captured.

As the authorities searched for the soldiers, an alert was put out in Jilin for banks and jewellers in the city to close.

No reason has been given for the soldiers’ actions.

By Genevieve Hassan
Arts reporter, BBC News

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The BBC’s Culture Show visited an art therapy session at Combat Stress to see how it is helping veterans

With the lack of military hospitals, many veterans are turning to charities for help. One is using the unlikely weapon of art to help fight the psychological wounds of war, while another organisation is actively encouraging artwork in the army.

Outside of the NHS, the charity Combat Stress is the biggest provider of support to armed forces veterans with conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety.

Art therapy is one of the treatments it uses. Drawing, sculpting and painting are helping patients manage their symptoms with great success.

“Traumatic memories take a different path from our normal memories and tend to be frozen in the body in the central nervous system,” explains Janice Lobban, who has been a trauma therapist at Combat Stress for the past 10 years.

“When a trauma happens, the person will react to get through the experience, but it leaves the trauma unprocessed. A person might then get a sensory memory like a sound, or sight, or smell, that is reminiscent of the trauma and they re-experience it happening again.”

‘Blank mind’

Sessions begin with a quick creative session to get thoughts and images down on paper

Art therapy, therefore, aims to help people express themselves unconsciously and process the meaning afterwards.

Group sessions typically begin with the therapist giving a one or two word brief to inspire creativity before veterans are given a selection of materials for painting, modelling or writing.

After 45 minutes of quick work, the group then get together to talk about and describe what they’ve just created.

“I try to keep a blank mind and just let images and feelings rise out from my unconscious to my hand and things start appearing,” says Richard Kidgell from Braintree, Essex, who served in the Royal Air Force from 1978 to 1985.

“What surprises me is that while I’m drawing I don’t know what it is – they’re just images, but by the end of the session I’ve made a complete story. It’s quite enlightening as sometimes I’m not entirely sure what I’ve drawn until I speak to others about it.”

After their sessions, the veterans are encouraged to develop their initial artwork into fuller, finished pieces to further interpret and explore their feelings.

Invisible wounds

Veteran Richard Kidgell with his finished artwork inspired by an art therapy session

Although many of the veterans who try the therapy may never have had any interest in art before, there are some servicemen who actively pursue the craft and use it to reflect their experiences.

The Army Arts Society, set up by war artist Linda Kitson after the Falklands War, promotes and supports arts and crafts within the British Army – working with serving military, those who have retired and even their dependants.

One of its latest initiatives is to provide operational art packs to troops – the first 20 of which went out to Afghanistan in September.

“Art is a way of keeping some people sane,” says committee member Francesca Bex, herself a painter and the wife of a bomb disposal expert.

“The packs can give soldiers an alternative. A lot of them watch awful films when they have down time and art can give some a different option.”

‘Angry and frustrated’

Art has been invaluable for 32-year-old Norfolk serviceman, Nick Hendry. Having joined the army when he was 16, he has been posted in countries including Germany, Kosovo and Afghanistan.

Painting gave Nick Hendry something to aim for after becoming injured during his service

After qualifying as a diving supervisor for his regiment’s airborne unit in Portsmouth, he was attacked while out one evening last May and left with serious head injuries.

In a coma for almost a month, he spent a lengthy time in a rehabilitation unit, where he had difficulty walking and talking, and suffered from hallucinations and memory loss.

“I was due to go on tour in September to Afghanistan but couldn’t make it as I was in hospital. I felt guilty this had happened to me,” he says.

“Eventually I got put back to my regiment and I tried to do my diving job but my head wasn’t good enough to enable me to do it.

“I was quite angry and frustrated and, as a lot of the lads were away on tour or leave, I didn’t have anyone to talk to. I thought I’d lost everything I loved.”

It was while looking through regiment photos that Nick thought he would try his hand at painting – something he used to enjoy doing. A colleague’s wife then suggested he join the Army Arts Society and he gained a new lease of life.

“I’d spend about 50 to 70 hours on a picture and every night, instead of sitting on the steps and questioning everything. I just worked on it and it was heaven,” he says.

Even though he was not confident in his abilities, the society encouraged Nick to enter its Serving War Artist of the Year competition – which he went on to win for his watercolour, Deliberation.

Nick Hendry won the Serving War Artist of the Year award for his watercolour, Deliberation

Nick says art has been invaluable in giving him something to aim for again: “I was struggling trying to justify everything, but as soon as I get hold of a paintbrush it takes my mind off some really bad thoughts and focuses my mind on one thing.”

He fully supports the operational art pack initiative. During his time in the army, he says there was no outlet for art – unlike the more traditional pastimes of rugby or football.

Richard Kidgell agrees it’s a good idea to give soldiers the opportunity to process what they are experiencing on a tour of duty. Potentially, it can allow the military to spot the symptoms of PTSD early.

“My guess is a lot of the packs will be largely wasted as people will dabble for 10 minutes and think it’s not for them,” he says.

“But even for the minority who will grasp the idea, the benefits for catching those people at an early stage and giving them a chance to vent will be brilliant.”

The Culture Show: Invisible Wounds is on BBC Two and BBC HD on Friday 11 November at 19:00GMT.