By Dailymail.com Reporter
Published: 05:14 GMT, 25 March 2019 | Updated: 05:25 GMT, 25 March 2019
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'Chickenpox parties' are said to be on the rise again, but experts warn that the dangers of purposely infecting healthy children with the virus may outweigh the supposed benefits of doing so.
Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin recently made headlines after revealing to WKCT that he and his wife had purposely exposed their five biological and four adopted children to chickenpox, all of who are unvaccinated.
'They got the chickenpox on purpose, because we found a neighbor that had it and I went and made sure every one of my kids was exposed to it, and they got it,' Bevin said.
Chickenpox parties are said to be on the rise again, almost 25 years after a vaccine was created. In the parties, parents purposely expose healthy children to infected children
Bevin went on to say that the kids were 'miserable for a few days' after succumbing to chickenpox, but that 'they all turned out fine.' It's unclear how old the children were when they were purposely infected.
The Republican governor's goal was supposedly to help his children gain immunity to the disease, a move that experts are warning against.
So-called chickenpox parties, where healthy kids were put into close proximity of infected children, were supposedly popular in the days before a vaccine became available in 1995.
Parents who participated in the pox parties then and now are said to believe that by ensuring that their kids got and then fought off the chickenpox when they were young, they