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Mandatory H1N1 Vaccine For NY Health Workers Suspended
lunatick writes "The controversial mandatory swine flu vaccine for health care workers in NY has been suspended. While the reason for the suspension was stated as a shortage of the vaccine, a connection was found showing state Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines, M.D. and/or his wife may directly profit from the sale of the vaccine. Within hours of that connection being questioned on a radio show and the podcast being distributed, the announcement was made suspending the order. The health care community of NYS is petitioning the State Attorney general to investigate the connection."
H1N1 may indeed be pandemic in NYS, but it's still not as prevalent as corruption.
The NY State Unions are Outraged that their employer wants to keep its workforce healthy. My conspiracy theory is if the employees are healthy then the State can operate with less redundant staff meaning the Unions are making less money from dues.
I don't want to see Unions to end. However they are in need of serious reform. They are now working for themselves and not for the people.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Just as an FYI, you have a typo in the title. "Manditory" should be "Mandatory"
I've read suggestions to make people (kids in particular) get vaccinations before but frankly I have never been comfortable with the concept. When you start telling people that they must put something foreign into their bodies at what point exactly does it stop?
Plus what happens if this vaccine turns out to have nasty side effects? Is the state who mandated it responsible or will they just wash their hands and say - "You had a choice!" That's what they tried to do after all the medication they made soliders take in the first gulf war turned out to have serious long term side effects.
Going into crazy paranoia zone here now, but how long until RFID chips (which have already been linked to cancer) will be mandatory for government employees for "security reasons?"
So, the "scandal" here is that his wife works for Golman Sachs and that pharma stocks are overpriced? Somehow mandating that healthcare workers get vaccinated against a new flu is somehow a huge conspiracy to profit for them how? I recognize that the tin-foil-hat brigade has kicked onto high alert over H1N1 vaccination, but this is stupid. This is front page material how?
"Manditory"? Really?
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Has President Obama and other high-level politicians, powerful elites, etc, along with their families, taken the H1N1 vaccine?
If no, there's the answer right there regarding its safety.
Ron
...from world-renowned scientist Jenny McCarthy.
We've been seeing tons and tons of articles like this recently on slashdot. There's a consistent anti-vaccine slant on all of them. I'm guessing that there's some small group of antivaccine crazies who are active on the firehose, and they consistently vote up each other's stories.
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In all the media hype there is not one word mentioned of the Pharmaceutical companies involved. Why? Could they be holding out for a better price? That's just good business isn't it? Has America traded its children's future for the promise from a Grinning Show Off with an out stretched hand? There to many dead to ignore these kinds of questions.
Either H1N1 is so serious that we do need a vaccine. Or it's ok to delay vaccinations while we get the finances sorted out. Something smells. And speaking as someone who has had it... all I can say is that it really doesn't seem much worse than regular flu. My only conclusion is that there's a bunch of people making a whole load of money off our fears. Global financial meltdown, H1N1... what's next? We need to give up another few trillion to save ourselves from a plague of locusts? Oh... too late for that one...
The same people who say that women must have free access to abortion, because they have the right to say what they do with their bodies, are now saying that NYS health care workers don't have the right to say what they do with their bodies with regards to a vaccine?
When I deployed to Iraq, I didn't want to take the anthrax vaccine, because the DoD were lying to us about it. They claimed that it was the same vaccine that veterinarians take. My wife is a veterinarian, and the shots they gave me were not what she gets.
I didn't want to take it, but I didn't have a choice. As a soldier, I don't have any rights over my own body. If the DoD says I have to take a vaccine, then I have to take it or face a courts martial. So I took the vaccine, and endured one of the known side effects: I had arthritis in both of my shoulders for over a year. I'm lucky that it's mostly gone now.
Why is it that liberals say that a woman has the right to decide whether or not she gets an abortion because it's her body, but say that health care workers don't have the right to decide whether or not they get vaccines, even though it's their body?????
I would not put it past these companies to create new flu strains and unleash them on the public, knowing sales would be generated. We've known about this strain since March 2009 and there are shortages of the vaccine so everyone is scrambling to buy it. One company in 2008 in it's SEC filing (sorry I do not recall it) claimed that they expected a 800% increase in antiviral sales in 2009 from government stockpiling.
and here's a gem.
"That the so-called swine flu was first observed in Mexico just at the same time Nicholas Sarkozy, president of France, was visiting there to announcement the establishment of a new French vaccine plant in Mexico, has to be more than coincidence." http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi122.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Aventis-Vaccine-Factory-in-by-Doreen-Carlson-090519-669.html
Even our own government has in the past infected it's own population to see how disease spreads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_biological_weapons_program#Experiments_on_non-consenting_individuals
I'm not one to cook up conspiracy theories, but it's always healthy to question things IMO.
There is no decision made about vaccines any more unless a politician has stock or the company making the vaccine gets hundreds of millions under the table.
Just imagine what they can do now, make a virus, release it, have it kill a few people, then make the vaccine for it.
Which is what I believe is exactly what is happening with H1N1.
Corruption is so widespread in government and business right now I wouldn't be surprised if the people in question where not on the boards of the companies making the vaccine in some manner of capacity.
But suprised, not at all. Logical outcome of events in my opinion.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
It's a right-wing radio station.
Reading the site that is linked, they don't even have any tangible evidence that there is something going on. A lot of guilt by association innuendo, six degrees of separation connections, and 'what if' type questions.
The CDC says it's because of the shortage of the vaccine. I'll trust them, for the time being, over a biased right-wing radio station.
Most of the opposition in New York seems to be coming from some nutcase who runs an embroidery firm, organizes GOP "Tea Parties", and rants about vaccines and autism.
Vaccines are safer than most over the counter medications. The US already has over 1000 swine flu deaths this year, and we're not even into winter yet. Getting vaccinated is definitely a statistical win. Getting medical personnel vaccinated is essential; they are going to encounter infected patients, and they can transmit the disease to others weakened by other illnesses.
General Charles Krulak (former Commandant of the United States Marine Corps, and one of the best ones) wrote this about the USMC mandatory anthrax vaccination program: "As we continue to broaden this program, I want to make you aware of a phenomenon we have observed: reluctance to take the anthrax vaccination is inversely proportional to the distance the marine is from the fighting hole. No marines engaged in Desert Thunder refused the vaccine." No nonsense there.
The same people who say that women must have free access to abortion, because they have the right to say what they do with their bodies, are now saying that NYS health care workers don't have the right to say what they do with their bodies with regards to a vaccine?
When a woman gets an abortion, only she and the fetus are affected.
When a health worker, WHO WORKES A JOB WHERE THEY WILL COME IN CONTACT WITH INFECTED PEOPLE, refuses to get a shot to prevent the spread of an infection...that affects their own health and potentially tens of thousands of people. That worker needs to be able to come into contact with patients, help them, and not get sick themselves, and not pass the illness onto others.
Furthermore, health workers are already required to get many vaccines. They knew that going into the job; when I worked at a hospital, we had to hand over medical records proving we'd been vaccinated (even though I didn't work with patients, if there is a public health emergency, they pull employees from other areas as needed. Even if it only to help push stretchers and take out the trash.) If you want the right to refuse a vaccine, DON'T WORK IN HEATHCARE.
This is, just as the top poster says, anti-vaccine hysteria from people who think their gut beats experts, research, fact. We're the only developed country that has this problem...the rest of the world, hell, even the Catholic church has accepted Evolution, yet nutjobs came out of the woodwork and demanded it's false and constantly challenge its teaching. Then we had the anti-global-warming nutjobs. Now it's anti-vaccine nutjobs.
What's next? Square Earth? We're the pivoting point of the universe? Why is it that it feels like only America has all the idiots who deny the obvious, proven, fact?
Please help metamoderate.
Put the sick people at one end of the hospital, and the healthy people at the other.. upwind. Now, everybody go home and take the rest of day off. Drinks are on the house.
The same people who say that women must have free access to abortion, because they have the right to say what they do with their bodies, are now saying that NYS health care workers don't have the right to say what they do with their bodies with regards to a vaccine?
Pregnant women can't make other people pregnant.
Health care workers can spread flu, and as they are health care workers, they will spread it to those most vulnerable due to whatever other conditions that made them patients.
Stop with the conspiracy bullshit, take the vaccine, or find a different line of work.
So go hide in a fucking isolation bubble. Life can never be zero risk.
The chance of a complication from one of these vaccines (real complications, not some bullshit that Joe's sister's cousin's friend's coworker had) is the same as getting hit by lightning on the way home from the doctor. And most of those are due to allergies.
I'm in an age group with one of the lower incidence rates, but the highest death rate amongst those that do get it. It's weird.
The corruption angle here might be a good reason to investigate the interest-conflicted doctor, and perhaps take back their ill-gotten gain if that's what's happening. But there's no basis to freak out about mandatory vaccination of health workers.
Waiters and other employees in restaurants are required to wash their hands, because their job puts them at higher risk of both getting and passing on disease to customers and fellow workers. The same risk management is necessary for health workers, who are much more at risk. The people screaming about the mandatory vaccinations of health workers aren't just crazy, they're interfering with protecting the public health.
--
make install -not war
Rice University has a vaccine production researcher that suggests last year's "wrong strain" vaccine increased one's chances of getting H1N1 this year because the "antigenetic distance" yields wrongly targeted (dud) antibodies.
Respected researchers' report from Canada say the odds for getting H1N1 this year were doubled for recipients of last year's flu shot.
The government and the pharmcos got a law passed to exempt themselves from any responsibility from adverse reactions to the current swine flu vaccines. In short, they already passed a law saying they can't get sued over it, no matter what happens to you. As such, I think that is good enough reason to reject mandatory forced vaccinations. If people think it is safe and effective, even though the government wants no part in responsibility, ie, they don't really trust it themselves legally, let them take the shot. If they trusted it, there would be no need for the new law, now would there be?
reference: http://www.emaxhealth.com/1020/39/32326/swine-flu-vaccine-makers-granted-legal-immunity.html
Most US people are Vitamin D deficient. See the Vitamin D Council web site for how to test and supplement:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/vitamin-d-and-h1n1-swine-flu.shtml
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
You're acting like these are forced vaccinations to the population, and they're not.
First they came for the health workers, but I am not a health worker so I did nothing.
Maybe it is more important to ask everyone to get their Vitamin D levels checked?
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/vitamin-d-and-h1n1-swine-flu.shtml
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml
Why is it OK to force people to get vaccinations (which are not 100% effective, and which can have side effects) but asking medical staff to get enough sleep, eat right, avoid bad stress, exercise, and either get sunlight or take vitamin D3 supplements seems like it can't be enforced? Why is it OK and moral to insist on vaccinations for medical staff but not diet and lifestyle issues? Forcing medical interns to work overtime so they lose sleep is obviously putting everyone at risk, too, if the interns' immune systems are weaker from lack of sleep or sunlight. Why don't hospitals change their policies more on that?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
And if you knew there were side effects but forced the vaccine on someone and they died should you be liable? Stop fear mongering via emotions and use your brain. Check the numbers, your chances of dying via regular influenza is just as high or higher than for H1N1 for most parts of the world (as of the last time I checked which was a few days ago). Yes, some groups are at a higher risk, and if you are one you should do your own analysis based on numbers on whether you want the shot(s) or not; and if shit happens, and you or your kids die, then that's that. How do you know if the vaccine would have helped, or done anything at all? Or killed them within hours of getting a shot (this was the cervical cancer shot but a risk is a risk - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8279855.stm )? Now, just to clarify, my kids have received all their shots, including the chicken pox shot (that was just started a few years ago, but had gone through a 20 year test in Japan first); and no, my family and I are not getting the H1N1 anytime soon as I calculate the risk to be unjustifiable at this time. I may/will revise that opinion over the following years as vaccines for flu's get the "test of time" seal that vaccines like the chicken pox one has.
In fact, I would rather get hepatitis, polio, and TB shots for my kids over any of the flu shots; unfortunately, they are not provided or easy to get.
For taking an inane pseudostory as proof of something.
It's a bit difficult to see how anybody could make a profit off mandatory vaccination of health workers. There's an extreme shortage of N1H1 vaccine, so any that actually gets made is going to be sold and used. This is just lame conspiracy mongering, the kind that mentally challenged right-wing pundits come up with on a daily basis.
I think it's interesting to note that once this claim is made, no matter what this doc does he'll still look bad.
His decision was to cut the program immediately. This implies either the claims are true and he wants to bury the whole thing before it erupts, or he just wants to save face. But the same conclusions would be drawn even if he hadn't cut it straight off, and no matter whether he was guilty or innocent.
Which is not to say I'm scolding the reporters for covering it, it's just something to think about.
If you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention.
This kind of language is fairly common among researchers.
For example, one statistician I worked with joked about reporting 0/14 as "as much as 7%" since that is technically less than 1/14 (or 7.14%).
From that perspective, the subtly in the language is clear that with 30% definitely /not/ taking the vaccine and 30% said they were "unsure", then, on a scale from
"definitely will" <- - - - - -> "definitely not"
60% of them "may not" take the vaccine.
Simple sleigh of the statistician's hand...
I think any healthcare worker who exposes patients to influenza because they refused the vaccine should be jailed. Nutjob sneezes near a immune compromised individual and it's over, nutjob doesn't even know, they just know that palin would make a great president.
I appreciate the work you do but you're no where near qualified to give a definitive answer on the topic you're writing about.
In order to try to get you to refuse vaccination, the anti-vaccination propagandists will often try to convince you that vaccines are unsafe. They will tell you that vaccines cause debilitating disease and sickness. However, such claims ignore the medical literature, which says something quite different. Before I tell you how we know that vaccines are safe, let me spend a moment discussing what "safe" means in terms of medical science.
Would you consider taking a bath to be safe? Did you know that roughly 350 people die every year because of taking baths? If so many people die every year taking baths, why do we continue this "dangerous" practice? We continue it because it is significantly more dangerous to not take baths than to take baths. If you decide to stop taking baths due to the alarming statistic quoted above, you are opening yourself up to all kinds of diseases. Thus, even though it is possible for you to die taking a bath, the benefits of taking that bath far outweigh the risks. As a result, we continue to take baths, despite the fact that some people die from it every year.
That’s exactly the kind of reasoning used to determine what is medically safe. Virtually every medicine and activity comes with risks. Even vitamins can cause liver damage, bleeding problems, heart injury, and bone problems, especially when taken in high doses. Thus, no matter what you do, you take risks. The question when evaluating any medical procedure is simply this: Do you risk more by refusing the medical procedure than by accepting the procedure? In the case of vaccinations, the medical research is quite clear. You are significantly more at risk if you refuse the standard vaccinations than if you get them.
How can I state this so definitively? All you have to do is look at the data that has been collected on this point, and it is quite clear. First, we know that over the past several years, the vaccination rate has increased in the United States. During this same time period, children in the United States have become significantly more healthy.
Note from the graph on the left that as the vaccination rate went up, the general health of children also increased. Note even further that when the vaccination rate declined slightly from 1998- 2000, the general health of children declined slightly as well. Now look at the graph on the right. As the vaccination rate increased, the infant mortality rate, child mortality rate, and preadolescent mortality rate decreased. Note further that the most significant reductions in mortality rates occurred when the vaccination rate was increasing the fastest, and that as the vaccination rate dropped from 1998-2000, the decline in mortality rates leveled off substantially.
Now do these graphs prove that vaccines are safe? Of course not. There are many factors that contribute to health and mortality, and there is no way from this study to conclude whether the increase in vaccination rates actually caused the increase in children’s health and the decrease in mortality rates. However, this graph presents a huge problem to anyone who wants to claim that vaccines are dangerous. If vaccines are so dangerous, why are children becoming healthier while the vaccination rate is increasing?
Of course, the only way to make a strong scientific conclusion when it comes to medicine is to do controlled studies. Many such studies have been done, and the conclusions are that vaccinated children are healthier than non-vaccinated children. For example, one study looked at 496 vaccinated and unvaccinated children, comparing the health of the vaccinated children to that of the unvaccinated children. It found that children who received immunizations against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, Hib, and polio within the first 3 months of life had fewer infections than those who did not. Surprisingly enough, even the rates of infections unrelated to the v
I know how you can put a positive slant on a vaccine article. Go to Africa, or Asia, or South America, or North America and visit people who are suffering from tuberculosis. Sit with mothers who have lost their babies to measles. Watch a child die from whooping cough. Not at all newsworthy, you shithead.
oh bullshit. you talk about fearmongering then you make this half assed claim about vaccines being more dangerous than the flu its self. god damn man there is no arguing with that level of brain damage.
My wife in being forced into taking the flu shot and the H1N1 vaccine... so far she is resisting to take any of them. She does work if a hospital, but in a clerical position, she does not have ANY contact with patients other than over the phone, yet she is being forced to introduce harmful bacteria into her body. We are really waiting for the courts to decide if it is legal for employers to demand such a thing.
To all those people who say it's understandable, think about if you would want to risk your spouses health for a vaccine that might do more damage to her/him than if would for the masses.
Maybe it would sound selfish, but to be honest i dont want my wife taking risks for safety of other people.
I mean don't get me wrong, companies make a profit on them, but it is a minor part of their total profits. Vaccines aren't all that pricey over all, and they are a one time thing. They don't make money like the prescription treatments do. We also aren't talking about a lot of people here. How many health workers does New York have? 10,000 maybe? Let's be real generous and say 100,000, which we all know is way over. Ok well that is 0.03% of the US population. A population, which I might add, is clamoring for the vaccine because there isn't enough right now.
Your REALLY think that a tiny percentage of something the company doesn't make much money on is enough to change their stock price? Sorry, I'm not buying the bullshit. Remember that flu vaccines normally cost in the realm of $25 to the end user. That includes the fee that the clinic administering it wishes to charge. The actual cost per dose to the clinic is more in the $10-20 range. That goes to the pharma company. However, they have costs in terms of producing that. Even if they were very low they are still lock to clear $5-10 profit per dose.
So you assume high profit on the doses and assume a very high number of workers and you still arrive at like $1,000,000 extra profit. Oh wow. Such an amazing amount... Except companies like GSK make a $25,000,000,000 profit. This kind of thing wouldn't even be a blip.
...and if he haven't, you will critize for NOT taking the vaccine as "regular" people are mandated.
Instead look at your critizing impulses, which are not constructive at all..
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
(Source -- definitely worth reading)
Vaccines save lives. Anti-vaxxers use lies and bullying to kill people and promote their pseudoscientific nonsense. It's a shame they won this battle, and people will die as a result. If there's one area of science and technology that needs an army of Slashdotters defending it today, it's vaccines and science-based medicine in general. Fight back.
That quote is not germane to the H1N1 discussion.
The U.S. has ordered around 251 million doses. North of the border, Canada is buying 50 million doses and expects to pay around $400 million dollars before the cost of administering. Assuming $8 per dose, that's 2.4 billion dollars spent from the North American public purse on a manufactured bit of fear-mongering. That's quite the tidy sale. --And the rest of the world is vaccinating against this 'swine flu' as well. Make no mistake; this is a cash-cow bonanza for a small number of companies.
That article you linked to is pure, high-charge emotionalism; as bad as anything you'd see on Fox News. By the time you get to the parts which contain actual data, the reader, (in this case you), are so worked up that you cannot reason your way out of a paper bag.
That's hardly a win for science. --Though it is certainly common enough among people who supposedly promote science.
While I am not a lover of network news in any form, this item is perhaps worth noting. . .
H1N1 Cases Exaggerated? - CBS
In any case, I really don't think it's that people have a problem with vaccines per se, it's that they don't trust the companies making and delivering them. And given the long and much-spotted track record of both the government and the pharmaceutical industry, this is a very reasonable position to take.
It sounds to me as though you're confusing the dream of a perfect world in which medical technologies are used appropriately and responsibly with the real world, which is filled with out-of-control capitalism and reckless disregard for human health and welfare. Geeks seem to have a lot of trouble differentiating between the two, I find.
-FL
That study's results haven't been replicated yet and it was pre-publication when it was reported on. It's the scientific equivalent of a rumor.
æeee!
So it's not the health care commissioner, it's his wife. And it's not that she has investments in the company that makes vaccine, but that she has a job with an investment bank that has investments in just about everything, so there must be some pharmaceuticals in there somewhere, right? So maybe requiring health care workers to get vaccinated will increase their sales (which seems unlikely, considering that vaccine manufacturers are not close to meeting the demand, but hey, maybe, right?) which will increase her employer's profits by some tiny fraction, and maybe this will help her by, I don't know, increasing her annual bonus by some tiny fraction. So clearly this is why New York is favoring requiring vaccination for health care workers.
Of course, if you play this kind of idiotic seven-degrees-of-separation game, you can make almost anybody sound like they have a conflict of interest. But then, the kind of people who are afraid of vaccines believe things that are even crazier...
Donald H. Rumsfeld Named Chairman of Gilead Sciences
http://www.gilead.com/pr_933190157
Gilead and Roche End Tamiflu® Dispute; Expanded Collaboration Includes Gilead Role in Oversight of Manufacturing and Commercialization
http://www.gilead.com/pr_783456
Then google for at least 2 of these 4: Rumsfeld Tamiflu Gilead Roche.
How can this guy be always on the "winning" side when America suffers?
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That study's results haven't been replicated yet and it was pre-publication when it was reported on. It's the scientific equivalent of a rumor.
And? All of these studies are. They're not experiments. They are junk science.
The chief evidence of this is how quickly people dismiss the ones they don't agree with, as you did your post above. You're pointing out how the community will influence, belittle, and otherwise modify that study until it no longer matters.
In contrast, how many people refute the speed of gravity? And if they did, how long would it take to sort it out? Would the community get to chime in and 'correct' the errors in the test?
there are critics of the teaching of evolution worldwide
So where are YOUR facts? Because as far as I know, the anti-evolution "movement" exists almost exclusively in the US. Everywhere else, evolution is held as proven, established fact. For fuck's sake, even the Catholic church supports it. We are viewed as a bunch of backwater, ignorant, stupid hicks.
Please help metamoderate.
It's a bit difficult to see how anybody could make a profit off mandatory vaccination of health workers. There's an extreme shortage of N1H1 vaccine, so any that actually gets made is going to be sold and used
You know, if I could pass along the "insightful" points from my post to yours, I would. I'm not sure why I didn't see this myself.