Mandatory Flu Vaccine -thoughts?

[dm123]

At my institution it is not in your face, it's a straightforward condition of employment.

All providers are treated the same way.

 

I'm not against it, and in fact think it's a good thing. It's just the straightforward condition of employment part I have an issue with. Especially if it applies to employees that have been there a long time, but no the chosen few who bring money in from procedures.

For me personally, I get flu shots required or not.

 

I suppose a case could be made, but hypocritically made, that since the docs are not employed by the hospital, they could chose to opt out.

[ventana]

Seems this is not such a simple "it is my right to decline" argument - then it is the right of the employer to decline hiring you.... so much for personal right trumping society

 

 

http://articles.boston.com/2011-09-14/news/30156355_1_flu-vaccine-vaccination-rates-hospital-workers

 

[h=1](First few paragraphs..)

Hospitals to require worker flu shots[/h]

[h=2]Refusal may lead to firing at Beth Israel, Children’s[/h]

September 14, 2011|By Kay Lazar, Globe Staff

• 
  
  • 
    
  • 
    
  • 
    
  • ShareE-mailPrint
     
    

 

 

 

 

 

Two of Boston’s largest teaching hospitals will require all employees who have contact with patients to get a flu vaccine this fall or face suspension or possibly termination.

The two, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Children’s Hospital Boston, are part of a 10-hospital coalition that pledged in July to adopt policies “as quickly as logistically feasible’’ to mandate seasonal flu vaccines for all health care workers “as a condition of employment.’’

The hospital rules are aimed at keeping workers healthy so they do not spread the flu to patients and also to ensure that a large number of caregivers do not get sick in the middle of a flu outbreak, when hospitals could be inundated with patients.

[CAdamsPAC]

Hey Andy... might be time to $et up a booth acro$$ the $treet from the ho$pital and $tart $elling ma$ks that color coordinate with female $crub $ets... $$$:wink:

 

Cause personally, I'd either be rockin color matched "blinged-out" masks ALL yr... or simply wouldn't work there.

This coming for a dude who is "asplenic" but simply refuses to allow someone to mandate that I inject something into my body.

"Inject yourself with this stuff... or you don't work here" seems just REALLY anti-Freedom/anti-American to ME...

 

But hey... thats just my take on it.

 

Contrarian

 

Just to stir the pot..........Does vaccination insure that one will not contract the Flu???????

[Contrarian]

NO it doesn't.... and was covered in earlier posts in this thread by several posters.

I spoke to this in #24...

[dm123]

A bit off topic but relates to personal rights.

 

There was a news brief last week locally where a company is requiring all their employees to quit smoking, even at home. The plan to do random drug screens for same. I don't smoke, agree it's a bad thing, but don't like where this is going. What's next?? Overweight, ETOH at home consumers? Maybe employers in the future will start checking for GSR residue when you show up for work.

[andersenpa]

If we're all in favor of the "market", then employers can require anything they want as a screening test. They can refuse to employ people that wear the color blue. The market will determine how many employees they get. The smokers and people that wear blue can work elsewhere, no? If we believe in free market principles for things like healthcare then it should apply to jobs and employers as well. If they want to refuse smokers, then the market will tell them if this was a bad choice or not.

[Contrarian]

Another thought on ethics...

As a provider, how does one obtain "Informed Consent" under a compulsory procedure/program... or with the patient under duress (loss of employment)...???

 

 

Informed Consent in Vaccination

The American Medical Association defines informed consent as "a process of communication between a patient and physician that results in the patient's authorization or agreement to undergo a specific medical intervention."¹The principle behind this process reflects respect for patient autonomy, and it is particularly relevant to the administration of vaccines. The Declaration of Helsinki, the highly-regarded international guidelines for research on human subjects, states that "considerations related to the well-being of human subjects should take precedence over the interests of science and society."² While this statement was written with respect to biomedical research, it has been argued that a similar principle should be applied to vaccine policy. Some bioethicists, clinicians, and others argue that the decision to vaccinate should always be left to patients (or parents, in the case of children), despite years of evidence that mass immunization confers additional protection to the communities by reducing the spread of infectious disease--a phenomenon known as herd immunity. Regardless, the principle of informed consent requires that a patient (or his/her parents, in the case of children) understand the risks and potential benefits of a particular vaccine before receiving it.

 

 

 

Mandatory Vaccination Programs and Medical Ethics

Physicians, upholding the Oath and individual-based ethics of Hippocrates, actually benefit not only their individual patients but also society . . . secondarily

 

Written By: Miguel A. Faria Jr., MD

Published In: Health Care News

Publication Date: April 1, 2011

Publisher: The Heartland Institute

---

The issue of mandatory vaccination programs for infants and children is coming to a head. Battle lines are being drawn.

 

On one side, we find concerned parents, increasingly being supported by dissenting physicians and scientists troubled by the side effects of vaccines, including serious neurological deficits and even death. Physicians on this side of the line have asked for more open data and information to the public; have questioned oft-cited risk versus benefit figures; and call for a return to the individual-based ethics of Hippocrates: particularly, first do no harm.

On the other side of the debate are government officials, representatives of the public health community, and much of the organized medical establishment. They want government to take a more active role in “developing immunization strategies,” developing databases to track vaccination records, increasing medical surveillance, and accelerating the pace of vaccine development. They also favor enlarging the scope of mandatory vaccine programs already in place, particularly for infants and pre-school children.

 

The Tucson, Arizona-based Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is among the voices calling for vaccine caution. The group supports increased parental involvement and freedom of choice in the vaccination decision. Parents, according to AAPS, should have the right to make fully informed decisions about vaccines, which would require complete disclosure to parents of all information relating to vaccine safety and efficacy. Parents should have the right to refuse to subject their children to certain vaccines.

 

Medical Ethics and Public Health

The past achievements of scientific medicine, including vaccination policies, largely developed within the scope of the traditional, individual-based ethics of Hippocrates. Even Louis Pasteur, who was not a physician, upheld the tradition and ethics of Hippocrates: first do no harm. Pasteur consulted with several physicians to ascertain there were no other treatments available before rendering experimental treatment against rabies to his young patient, Joseph Meister.

 

Physicians who follow the Oath and ethics of Hippocrates must always be careful to satisfy two conditions:

• that they place their patient’s interest above the cost considerations important to third-party payers, and even above the physician's own personal or monetary interest; and
  

• that they uphold the interest of the individual patient above that of the collective, be that the health care networks or some “greater good” of society or the state.
  

Unfortunately, in the last decade mandatory vaccination programs have allowed these two ethical conditions to be violated. Some physicians have expressed concern that such “public health” policies overtly and deliberately subordinate the patient-doctor relationship to the interest of the state.

 

In this situation, the physician ceases to be his patient's advocate and merely becomes an agent for the state. Rather than placing the interest of his patients first, he is placed under intense pressure to abdicate his responsibility to his patients for the purported “greater good.”

 

This collectivist, utilitarian ethic contrasts dramatically with the individual-based ethics that has guided medicine for centuries. The new ethic has caused the development of a new, “population”-based medicine, seen most clearly in the movement toward managed care and national health care (socialized medicine).

 

The new ethics confronts the physician with a great dilemma, raising hard, tough questions that go to the heart of the profession. Am I recommending vaccination to my patients because it’s in their best interest, or simply because I must comply with the state’s mandate for universal vaccination? Am I a healer, a conscientious physician duly exercising my best medical judgment for my patient? Or am I an agent of the government, enforcing public policy?

 

Physicians and Patients Should Decide

In most cases, a physician would recommend vaccination for most of his patients. But each patient is different, and the ethical physician evaluates the special situation of his patient, based on an individualized risk-benefit assessment, before determining whether to proceed. “I will follow that method of treatment which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous,” explains the Hippocratic Oath.

 

There is no question of the great benefit of general vaccination for such scourges as poliomyelitis, diphtheria, smallpox, etc. But can we say the same for greatly self-limited rotavirus diarrhea in infants, chickenpox for children, or for the sexually transmitted hepatitis B for both? In the case of rabies, we institute aggressive vaccination treatment only after exposure.

Public health should aim at protecting at-risk populations from afflicted or exposed individuals. Healthy children who pose no threat to their classmates or teachers should not be turned out of their schools because they haven’t complied with vaccination protocols. Parents should not be accused of child abuse merely because, out of genuine concern for their children’s health, they have refused to subject them to certain vaccinations.

 

Does a newborn infant benefit from being vaccinated at birth against hepatitis B, for example, or would vaccination be safer and more effective when the youngster is older and stronger, and when the risk of contracting hepatitis B may be greater? The medical community does not even know how long the vaccine provides immunity against hepatitis B.

Should adults who choose to abstain from risky sexual behaviors be forced to accept vaccination against sexual herpes, hepatitis B, or HIV infection—diseases they simply will not contract because of the method of transmission?

 

Historically, exposed or infected persons were quarantined to prevent spreading of a disease. By today’s “ethical” standards, the public health threat is posed by healthy but un-vaccinated persons: adults who practice safe sex, well children excluded from public schools, soldiers court-martialed for refusing to be vaccinated against anthrax.

 

Directions for Public Policy

Recognizing the increasingly coercive nature of vaccination policies, medical professionals attending the AAPS’s annual meeting in October 2000 unanimously passed a resolution against mandatory government vaccination programs.

 

"This is not a vote against vaccines," explained Dr. Jane M. Orient, executive director of AAPS. "This resolution only attempts to halt blanket vaccine mandates by government agencies and school districts that give no consideration for the rights of the parents or the individual medical condition of the child."

 

Forty-two states have mandatory vaccination policies. Many children are required to have as many as 22 shots before they enter first grade. In addition, many school districts require, as a condition for school attendance, vaccination for diseases such as hepatitis B—primarily an adult disease, usually spread by multiple sex partners, drug abuse, or in the occupational hazard of exposure to blood. Children under the age of 14 are three times more likely to suffer adverse effects from the hepatitis B vaccine than they are to contract the disease.

"AAPS believes that parents, with the advice of their doctors, should make decisions about their children's medical care — not government bureaucrats,” said Orient. “This resolution affirms that position."

 

The pages of medical history are replete with indisputable evidence, including the history of vaccination itself, that physicians, upholding the Oath and individual-based ethics of Hippocrates, actually benefit not only their individual patients but also society . . . secondarily.

 

In other words, physicians working in the enlightened best interest of their individual patients produce tangible benefits for humanity as a whole.

 

By contrast, the historic record also reveals that when physicians become agents of the state rather than advocates of their patients, everyone suffers. Physicians become preoccupied with preventive health measures and the "rational allocation of scarce resources," rather than the health of their individual patients.

 

 

Emphasis mine...

 

Conclusion...the majority of the experts respect the right of the individual to decline vaccination for religious, medical, or philosophical reasons. HCWs support this approach, because it preserves their freedom, their right to refuse vaccination for a valid reason. In summary there is strong agreement among the experts studying the control of influenza outbreaks that influenza vaccination is an effective measure to decrease the spread of the disease. It is a measure with very few serious side effects. The experts also recognize that institutional vaccination programs can be effective in increasing vaccination rates when barriers to vaccination are identified and addressed. Ongoing research is continuing to strengthen these institutional programs. Most importantly, the majority of the experts respect the right of the individual to decline vaccination for religious, medical, or philosophical reasons. HCWs support this approach, because it preserves their freedom, their right to refuse vaccination for a valid reason. Additionally institutional, as opposed to individual vaccination mandates, may avert legal disputes between employers and employees. Based upon these findings, I advocate for rejecting the mandating of individual HCW vaccination. Instead, I support mandating that institutions offer comprehensive programs that eliminate barriers to voluntary immunization, while respecting the right of the individual to decline vaccination for religious, medical, or philosophical reasons. Obtaining a signed declination detailing reasons for refusing vaccine may lead to program enhancements that will aid in achieving and sustaining high rates of voluntary HCW vaccination.

[HopefulPA]

I worked at a different Detroit area hospital that required flu shots or wearing a face mask when you were within 5 feet of a patient. This was confirmed by getting a little sticker for our ID badge from the person who gave us the shot (and those stickers were under lock and key because people wanted to steal them to avoid getting the shot/wearing the mask). Personally, I am also for 100% compliance with exclusions for those with true allergies. I had to show proof of immunity to chickenpox, rubella, etc. when I hired in. I just don't see what the big "personal rights" argument is against one of the biggest public health successes of the past few decades.

 

I also work in that same system. What I noticed is that only about 70% of the employees got the shot but I did not see 30% wearing the masks. There was no enforcement no sticker(i.e. shot) =wear a mask.

 

I think it should be mandatory in hospitals but I don't think people should loose their jobs. Option is Get the shot or wear the uncomfortable, hot mask all day long and enforce it!

[CAdamsPAC]

NO it doesn't.... and was covered in earlier posts in this thread by several posters.

I spoke to this in #24...

 

My sarcasm font wasn't applied.....my bad!

[Contrarian]

My sarcasm font wasn't applied.....my bad!

 

Nahhh...

I KNEW you were being facetious...

My response was for the benefit of others... and not even really directed at you.

As I know you already know whats going on... and rarely ask a question that you don't already know the answer to ...

[julia_dodo]

Topdogg, contrarian and those who argue against mandatory flu vaccine, I just want to say you guys are awesome! I really admire your courage to speak up! And I am glad to see there are people who don't do with the herd. Looks like the vote is pretty much split between mandatory and personal choice though.......I wish there are more people like you guys! I am afraid to speak up in class because I am afraid people would label me as a "conspiricist" (how easy and convinent is this label!), or even think I am odd.

 

I also want to say, in my opnion, "do no harm" should apply to yourself too. how can you be sure vaccinations is NOT doing harm to your body?

 

I am a PA student right now and the school started to provide free flu shots. we are told "it's required otherwise you won't be able to do rotation in hospitals". If you don't get the shot, you may not go to certain hospitals for rotation, and you have to sign an acknowledge form stating you understand and choose to "harm the patient"---seriously, that is a hars accusation without any evidence.

I knew I have to deal with it before I came to PA school, but am trying to fight the system as long as possible. I would rather wear a mask--it is more effective anyway. I hope once I start working I will be somewhere without this ****ty mandatory deal. Is it possible?

[Contrarian]

... how can you be sure vaccinations is NOT doing harm to your body?

 

First I'd like to say thanks...

 

FOR CLARITY:

Personally I think the likelyhood of being harmed from a vaccination is nil...

I harbor NO suspicion of immunization/vaccination programs.

 

My ENTIRE opposition is focused upon the idea of honoring the fundamental principle of AUTONOMY.

 

For example... I don't believe in abortion, and don't think any women should get a abortion...

Thing is... I also don't believe its anyone's decision but the owner of that body.

Therefore I'm Pro-Choice.

 

I just don't think its appropriate for ANYONE or ANY entity to MANDATE/Compel a human with threats of any type and/or duress... to inject, instill, insert, remove something from THEIR own body (excluding "impaired capacity" issues)

 

This is my ONLY objection to this.

 

I don't think immunizations are unsafe.

I don't think there is some kind of "conspiracy."

I think immunizations save lives and significantly decrease morbidity and mortality.

I like immunizations and recommend them, when appropriate to all my patients.

 

I just don't think using threats to compel people to inject anything into their bodies conform with the ideas/principles of patient autonomy.

 

Maintaining absolute "duress free" control of what does or does not happen to ones body is where true "freedom" lies.

Once this goes away, every other simile of "freedom" is but a illusion/delusion.

 

This whole issue is kind of ironic... when you consider that its healthcare organizations (hospitals) that usually have "ethics committees" that are doing this.

 

I find it ironic and hypocritical because as a credentialed provider at any these very institutions... I bet if you took it upon yourself to tell a patient you were seeing there , "[insert any medication, procedure, therapy here] or leave this hospital" ... you would immeadiately be "called onto the carpet" and brought up on ethics charges/accused of ethics violations.

 

[ventana]

good god - you are bleeding over into old threads

 

you want to continue your trivial debate - fine - but don't poison old threads