Free Soil Party Blog

The hype and fearmongering about this new influenza strain beggars the imagination. New York tried to lay down the law, threatening to fire any health care worker refusing to get both the H1N1 and seasonal flu vaccines. Some health care workers protested this mandate, causing consternation among public health officials, decrying their selfishness and claiming they put patients at risk. This story is from WTEN in Albany

Health care workers protest mandatory H1N1 vaccine
Posted: Sep 25, 2009 02:40 PM
By TARYN FITSIK

SARATOGA SPRINGS — The New York State Department of Health has made the influenza vaccine mandatory for all health care workers who come into contact with patients.

Once the H1N1 vaccine becomes available, it will also be mandated.

However, some local healthcare workers are outraged with the news.

Judy McQueen, has been a registered nurse for 40 years, and currently works part-time at Saratoga Hospital. She says she does not plan on getting either shot, even if it jeopardizes her job.

“We are on a slippery slope, by being mandated and told by our state and our government what we need to do to our bodies, in order to have a job,” says McQueen.

However, McQueen says her argument is with the state, not her hospital.

According to the New York State Commissioner of Health, Richard Daines, the welfare of patients, is without any doubt, best served by the very high rates of staff immunity that can “only” be achieved with mandatory influenza vaccination.

But McQueen says she and other healthcare workers constantly take precautions to keep patients safe, and feels getting the shots will compromise her own safety.

“It hasn’t been tested enough to know what the ramifications of getting this are,” says McQueen.

Naturally the government and most medical authorities dismissed these fears as irrational myths, and the push was on to mandate both the seasonal and H1N1 flu vaccines for health care workers, and to convince others deemed at high risk to get these vaccinations. Pregnant mothers have been especially targeted. This essay from the New York Times painted a frightening picture of the risks for pregnant women refusing the vaccines.

Pregnancy Is No Time to Refuse a Flu Shot
By ANNE DRAPKIN LYERLY, MARGARET OLIVIA LITTLE and RUTH R. FADEN
Published: September 28, 2009

Pregnant women are deluged with advice about things to avoid: caffeine, paint, soft cheese, sushi. Even when evidence of possible harm is weak or purely theoretical, the overriding caveat is, “Don’t take it, don’t use it, don’t do it.”

In a few contexts, the admonition is warranted; in most, it is merely inconvenient and anxiety provoking. But in the case of pandemic influenza, it may be deadly. With the second wave of swine flu at hand, and up to 50 percent of the public at risk, the usual mode of thinking about pregnancy and medications threatens to make a worrisome situation worse.

The dangers of this mentality became frighteningly apparent this summer, when a study in The Lancet reported strikingly high rates of death and of complications like pneumonia in pregnant women with H1N1 influenza. Pregnancy meant a fourfold risk of hospitalization, sometimes with a tragic outcome; all the pregnant women who died had been relatively healthy to begin with.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have since put pregnant women at the top of the priority list for the vaccine, and have recommended that pregnant women start antiviral medications as soon as possible after exposure to the virus and after the onset of flu symptoms.

But if experience is any indication, even these forceful recommendations may not be enough to overcome reluctance among pregnant women and those who care for them. Even though the seasonal flu vaccine is recommended for pregnant women in particular, in one study only 15 percent received the vaccine — a rate far lower than any adult group for whom it is recommended.

And despite recommendations that antiviral drugs be started as soon as flu symptoms appear, many pregnant women in the Lancet study were not treated soon enough. Delays ranged from 6 to 15 days from the time that symptoms started, and 2 to 14 days from the time the women were seen by a doctor. Not one of the six pregnant and relatively healthy women who died received medication within 48 hours of the onset of her illness.

This is a sadly familiar pattern. After the thalidomide disaster of 1960s, and the very real concerns it raised about the impact of drugs on fetal development, many ended up viewing the use of any medicine by pregnant women as anathema. As a result, doctors and women alike often eschew or discontinue medications for serious illnesses, even when the harms of untreated disease, for women and the children they bear, are worse than any risks of medication.

If there was ever a time to rewrite the playbook on how to think about drugs, vaccines and pregnancy, this is it. The lives of women and babies depend on it.

Interesting how the risks of vaccines and other medications are downplayed. There are good reasons for pregnant women in particular to avoid dangerous medications. The influenza vaccines still contain the infamous thimerosal, supposedly phased out of childhood vaccinations, though to the best of my knowledge, most if not all vaccinations contain at least traces, which is enough to cause damage, particularly to people with problems excreting mercury. The flu vaccines contain the full dose of thimerosal. How does that jibe with the proclamation that thimerosal has been taken out of childhood vaccinations? Is there some presumption that fetuses are less vulnerable than children? No, in the panic about swine flu, people are supposed to forget their qualms and trust the claims that thimerosal was never a problem, but was merely phased out to placate parents irrationally worried about autism and related disorders. Mercury is a dangerous poison in any form, though some mercury compounds are more dangerous than others; some forms are more readily excreted, while others are more readily accumulated. Certainly influenza can be dangerous to pregnant women, but to flatly claim the lives of women and babies depend on vaccines and antiviral drugs is at best misguided, at worst unsupportable fearmongering. The death toll from influenza has always been exaggerated, since most of the deaths actually result from complications such as pneumonia.

Battles over mandates and fears continued. This story is from Reuters

US health worker vaccine fears mirror public doubt
Wed Oct 14, 2009 4:18pm EDT
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON, Oct 14 (Reuters) – Hospital and other healthcare workers are at the front of the line to get the new swine flu vaccine, but many are resisting and even fighting vaccination requirements.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cannot yet say how many are reluctant to have the shots because the campaign has just started. But the number may be significant given that only about 40 percent of U.S. healthcare workers ever get vaccinated against seasonal influenza.

A vaccination requirement sparked protests in New York this month, and already one lawyer has filed suit to allow staffers to opt out.

Healthcare workers, at high risk of infection with influenza, including swine flu, were the first offered the vaccine against H1N1 in many states that have started vaccinating campaigns over the past two weeks.

“It is extremely important that healthcare workers, as well as all hospital staff, get vaccinated for both H1N1 and seasonal flu,” said Lynnae Mahaney, president of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists.

Mahaney’s organization surveyed pharmacy directors at 341 hospitals across the country and found only 37 percent could report vaccination rates of more than 70 percent at their hospitals.

“That’s too low,” said Mahaney.

Healthcare workers such as nurses and technicians often have the same fears the general public has about vaccines — are they tested, can they give you the flu and can they cause side-effects?

The CDC says these fears are based on myths, but doubts persist.

MANDATORY SHOTS

The Infectious Diseases Society of America has asked for all states to mandate vaccinations for healthcare workers.

“Decades of scientific data demonstrate Food and Drug Administration-approved influenza vaccines to be safe, effective, and cost-saving,” the group said in a statement.

But the U.S. Health and Human Services Department is stressing that the vaccination campaign is voluntary.

Hospital Corp. of America is requiring healthcare workers to get vaccinated, while MedStar, which operates hospitals in the Baltimore-Washington area, requires all staff, including clerical workers, to be immunized.

New York state requires healthcare workers to be vaccinated against flu, but this week attorney Patricia Finn of Piermont, New York, filed for a temporary restraining order against Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines.

Finn, whose practice specializes in clients who want to be exempt from vaccine requirements, said her suit represents 60,000 healthcare workers.

The government is wise to stress that the vaccine program is voluntary, since it is a violation of international law to give anyone medication without informed consent. That was one of the big issues in the Nuremberg trials. So the scientific evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates vaccines are safe, effective, and cost-saving? That is what the medical orthodoxy claims, but there is a great deal of scientific evidence to the contrary. FDA never had a problem with thimerosal in vaccines until the evidence of its dangers became too difficult to sweep under the carpet. There is no way ingesting mercury in any form is safe. The epidemic of autism and learning disabilities since the explosion of vaccines recommended for children could possibly have other causes, since the general environment has steadily become more toxic, but mercury is a logical suspect, since it is known to damage the brain. When I was young, most children got polio and DPT vaccines, nothing else.

On October 16, a New York state judge threw out the mandate, but the state vowed to fight on. This story is from the Albany Business Review

Judge temporarily bans mandatory vaccines for health care workers
Friday, October 16, 2009

A state judge has temporarily banned the New York state Department of Health from mandating health care workers to be vaccinated against seasonal flu and H1N1/swine flu.

The Oct. 16 order, issued in Albany by acting state Supreme Court Justice Thomas McNamara, remains in effect until a follow-up hearing on Oct. 30.

In its order, the state Department of Health argues that health care staff who refuse to be vaccinated pose a serious risk to patients, because they can transmit the flu without even knowing they have it.

The order estimates that as much as half of health care workers today do not receive annual flu vaccinations, and argues that voluntary vaccination programs have not resulted in sufficient immunization levels.

The Public Employees Federation, which represents 59,000 white-collar state workers, praised the temporary restraining order issued Oct. 16. About 5,000 union members are covered by the vaccine order, the union said.

“This is about our right to make a choice,” said Doris Dodson, chairman of the union’s nurse committee. “Why do certain health care workers have fewer rights than everyone else?

The union said it encourages its members to receive the vaccinations, but does not support the emergency regulation that mandates such action.

NYSUT, which represents 600,000 teachers, agreed. Its lawsuit said the regulation “violates state rule-making procedures … by declaring an emergency when none exists.”

“This suit does not weigh in on the safety of the H1N1 vaccination or the potential seriousness of an H1N1 outbreak,” said NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi. “It does, however, seek to protect the rights of workers to make informed choices as individuals in deciding whether or not to be vaccinated.”

Meanwhile, the state Department of Health vowed to fight the lawsuits.

“The department intends to vigorously defend this lawsuit on its merits, and we are confident that the regulation will be upheld,” said spokeswoman Claire Pospisil. State health officials, she said, “have clear legal authority to promulgate the mandatory regulation.”

Really? Is USA now a fascist country, that can require medications without consent? Is the medical orthodoxy so cocksure of its theories that it is willing to fire any health workers that do not agree? Their track record is dreadful, as is their unwillingness to come clean about the long history of medical disasters. A week later, New York blinked, suspending the mandate on the grounds of the shortage of vaccine, which was odd, because there was probably going to be enough to give to the health care workers by the deadline. Gary Null, who had testified for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, had another theory, that New York did not want all his evidence to be splashed all over the news, which was likely to occur if the hearing had taken place as scheduled. This peculiar story about New York backing down is from CNN

New York suspends mandatory flu shots for health workers
By Chloe Melas
CNN

NEW YORK (CNN) — New York public health workers will no longer be required to be vaccinated against both the seasonal and H1N1 flu virus, state officials announced Thursday, prompted by a vaccine shortage.

A statement from Gov. David Paterson announced the policy change on behalf of State Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines.

Daines had originally said that public health workers must be vaccinated for the seasonal flu and the H1N1 virus, also known as swine flu, by November 30 or risk discipline.

The Public Employees Federation, New York’s second-largest state employees union, sued over the requirement and was awaiting a state Supreme Court hearing scheduled for October 30.

The vaccine shortage has defused the conflict.

The federal government had told states that, by the end of October, an estimated 120 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine would be readily available, according to Paterson and Daines. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will have only about 27.7 million doses of the vaccine at month’s end.

“The CDC acknowledged that New York would only receive approximately 23 percent of its anticipated vaccine supply,” Paterson said. “As a result, we need to be as resourceful as we can with the limited supplies of vaccine currently coming into the state.”

This is patently absurd. If it was so important to vaccinate health care workers, 27 million doses by the end of October would have been plenty to go around, especially since the deadline was the end of November! Or was it more important to get the vaccine to Citigroup and Goldman Sachs? Regardless, the claim that the vaccine shortage defused this conflict has to be bunk. Gary Null may well be right that the medical orthodoxy did not want the mandate to be argued in court. The authorities have too much to lose, because science is not on their side. Despite all the bland reassurances that this vaccine is just as safe as any other influenza vaccine, there is no way to know that; whatever tests were done were short-term tests, which can prove nothing about safety or efficacy. Not to mention, there have been problems with other influenza vaccines, and it is highly arguable that the benefits of those outweigh the risks.

The resistance to mandates continues, even as the number of new cases of H1N1 influenza appears to have peaked. Many people are still anxious to get the vaccine, but the worst may well already be behind us. If so, the dire predictions have clearly been overblown. This story is from Reuters

US medical workers balk at mandatory flu vaccines
Fri Nov 13, 2009 4:33pm EST
By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Even as they are forced to wait like everyone else for swine flu vaccines in short supply, thousands of nurses and other front-line healthcare workers are fighting mandatory flu immunization policies being put in place by some U.S. hospitals.

The H1N1 pandemic, which has killed about 3,900 Americans so far, has stoked tensions over the best way to safeguard medical caregivers and their patients from flu. Nurses unions have won some early battles against compulsory vaccination.

Most health experts and much of the public agree that medical personnel as a rule should be vaccinated. An infected nurse or technician can pass on a virus that could be deadly to a frail patient. But data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that only about 40 percent of U.S. healthcare workers ever get shots for seasonal influenza.

The question now dividing the medical community is whether it makes more sense to force health workers to get flu shots or to coax them into rolling up their sleeves voluntarily. Proponents of the mandatory route, adopted by a growing number of hospitals, say voluntary efforts largely have fallen short.

“They just don’t work,” said Dr. Neil Fishman, president-elect of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. “The bottom line is vaccination is the most effective way to prevent influenza.”

He and other advocates of mandatory vaccination point to research they say shows steep declines in patient flu deaths and staff sick days when caregivers are immunized.

Critics say mandating that healthcare workers get vaccines is misguided, ineffective and ultimately counterproductive.

“There is no evidence that vaccination of healthcare workers in hospitals or outpatient settings has any impact whatsoever on patients,” said Dr. Melanie Swift, head of occupational health for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Tennessee. “You’ve got to vaccinate the patients.”

UNION CHALLENGES

Healthcare workers unions are challenging compulsory flu vaccine policies with some success.

The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics was ordered to halt its mandatory program this month after unions for nearly 5,000 employees there won two binding arbitration rulings that struck down the policy as a contract violation.

Union officials note that the Iowa City facility achieved an 84 percent vaccination rate among its staff last year under its voluntary program, a level considered exemplary.

Swift said this proves the success of educating healthcare workers, some of whom have the same misconceptions and fears about vaccines as the general public. Coercion, she argued, breeds distrust that undermines government safety assurances.

Last month, a New York judge sided with a nurses union and issued a court order against a statewide policy requiring flu shots for all medical workers. Days later, the state suspended its policy, saying the flu vaccine was too scarce to enforce.

Nurses unions also have filed lawsuits against HCA hospitals on behalf of its members in California and Nevada.

Critics of mandatory immunization say the danger posed in hospitals by influenza pales in comparison to many other bugs lurking in medical facilities.

The CDC reports 1.7 million people are stricken each year by all manner of hospital-acquired infections, such as pneumonia, and 99,000 of those die. The number of flu cases among them is unknown but believed to be very small.

When flu is carried unknowingly into hospitals, unvaccinated healthcare workers are hardly the only culprits.

Hospital are filled with visitors who come into close, regular contact with patients, “and their vaccination status is almost never ascertained,” Swift said.

Moreover, seasonal flu vaccines prove largely ineffective in some years against the actual strains that emerge. Thus, all other infection-control measures such as hand-washing and staying home when sick remain key to curbing flu’s spread.

Why would voluntary programs not work? Is it possible health care workers know something about vaccines the average person does not? Dr. Fishman and his fellow true believers have a credibility problem, which is only exacerbated by attempts to force the issue. His assertion that vaccination is the most effective way to prevent influenza is just blind faith, unsupported by evidence or common sense. Vaccines have never been proven to work, despite the mountains of alleged evidence; it is impossible to prove that any method of preventing disease was the deciding factor. This is the logical conundrum of the impossibility of proving a negative. The influenza vaccine has never been claimed to be 100% effective, and since the manufacturers must guess which strains will be circulating each season, their guesses are often wrong. Even if they guess right, viruses mutate, so there could never be a foolproof vaccine even if the principle of vaccination was sound. It is well known that the most effective way of obtaining immunity to any disease is to be exposed, so the body can mount an immune response. Whether the person actually develops the disease or fights it off without getting noticeably sick, that immune response to most diseases lasts a lifetime. This is why authorities had to concede that older people who had been exposed to similar influenza strains several decades ago are not likely to contract this one.

Hospitals are hardly pristine environments, no matter how many of the workers get vaccinated. The vaccine is bound to fail for some of these workers, and visitors carrying diseases cannot be kept out in any event. Influenza is a relatively minor problem in the hospital setting. Unless this H1N1 strain radically changes, it appears no more dangerous than any other strain, except for young children which seem disproportionally at risk. This strain is also unusual in that its first wave occurred in the spring, past the normal flu season. Influenza is never pleasant, and it is sometimes fatal, but all this hype and panic really seems unwarranted. This is not a national emergency, and mandating vaccination for influenza, especially now after the rate of infections has peaked, is not serving any useful purpose, except to lay some more pavement down the road toward a creeping police state. That may sound hyperbolic, but forcing people to get vaccinated with a brand new virtually untested vaccine for a new vastly overhyped disease is conducting a medical experiment without informed consent. This is the kind of irrational behavior expected of people panicking for no good reason. Those who accuse the resisting health care workers of selfishly putting their own interests ahead of the health of their patients ought to think long and hard about why these workers feel getting the vaccine is not in their own best interests. Is it not possible they are right to fear this “cure” is worse than the disease? If not, why are huge numbers of people all over the world so skeptical? Medicine does not have the kind of pristine track record that could justify the confidence of these experts, so sure of their beliefs they are eager to fire health care workers who do not share their confidence. Is that the way democracy and science are supposed to work? Is the right to dissent now considered an unaffordable luxury during a national health emergency that is not even a real emergency? This is an ominous precedent, and no good will come of it.

The record of medical treatment of women is actually quite scandalous. Some examples are DES; thalidomide; hormone replacement therapy; the attempt to outlaw midwifery; the epidemic of unnecessary Caesarian sections, hysterectomies, mastectomies, and mammograms; the Dalkon Shield; the standard birthing position; the theory of penis envy; clitoridectomy to cure “hysteria” and masturbation, just to name a few. There are reports of pregnant women who got the H1N1 vaccine and miscarried soon after. Coincidence? I think not. I hope this is not what was meant when doctors say, the lives of women and babies depend on pregnant women submitting to this vaccine. If the vaccine can cause miscarriage, it is bound to cause plenty of other problems for the children of mothers who trust doctors to know what is best for them.

This entry was posted by Aletha on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 11:01 pm