Neon Tetra Disease - should I avoid one of my favorite fish?

Neon Tetra "disease" is a sporozoan disease caused by Pleistophora hyphessobryconis.
It has a life cycle. Not letting it get started is the best defense. Avoid diseased fish from your fish shop, and quarantine any new fish before adding them to your display tank. Personally, I quarantine incoming fish for two months.

I bought 13 neons and one of them had the disease. I don't quarantine when I buy schools of fish because then I might as well separate each fish and that isn't going to happen. The key with neons is to keep a close eye on them and once one of them exhibits any signs of the disease remove it from the tank and put it in quarantine to see if it really is neon tetra disease. If it isn't then the fish can be saved, but if it is unfortunately the fish is a goner.

This will sound cruel, but neons are so cheap that I don't mind the risk of buying a large school and not all of them making it. I've come to accept it with the neons.

As dbosman mentions, just be sure to look at the aquarium where you are buying from and if you noticed any of the neons acting funny then stay away or at the very least make sure you don't pick that one to take home.