Not at all. About a third of the patients with psoriasis will have a family history of psoriasis; the other two-thirds don't. So it appears that there is some heritable or genetic background for at least some cases of psoriasis, but it's the change in the immunologic status. It absolutely is not contagious. John Updike wrote in New Yorker magazine quite a while ago an essay that he called Diary of a Leper. John Updike had psoriasis. It was a very sensitive beautiful story of what it is like to go through life with a skin condition that looks terrible.
