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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."

13 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. BUSTED! by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    H1N1 may indeed be pandemic in NYS, but it's still not as prevalent as corruption.

    1. Re:BUSTED! by Abcd1234 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What the hell. The article says this:

      A survey of GPs published on Healthcare Republic, the website of GP magazine, found that up to 60% of GPs may decline vaccination. Although the numbers who responded were small - 216 GPs

      That's a laughably tiny sample. Hell, for all we know, it's self-selected, which would almost certainly introduce bias. But then they says this:

      they are in line with a much bigger survey of nurses published a week ago by Nursing Times, which found that a third of 1,500 nurses would refuse vaccination.

      How the fuck is 60% "in line" with 30%?? But then you look closer, and you actually see this:

      Among the GPs who responded to the survey published by Healthcare Republic, 29% said they would not choose to have the vaccine and 29% said they were unsure whether or not they would.

      Ohhh... so now it's actually 30% (of 219 people) who said they wouldn't, and 30% who weren't sure. Great headline, assholes.

      Yeah, sorry bub, you're gonna have to do better than that.

  2. Mandating vaccines... by Manip · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?"

    1. Re:Mandating vaccines... by sjames · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Most reports are that swine flu has been mild compared to the typical in most individuals. This includes reports that some exposed have never developed any symptom. The reported numbers for swine flu rely on the presumption of swine flu rather than the regular seasonal flu, not actual tests. That is, died so must have been swine flu.

      What evidence there is suggests that children and the elderly should have priority for vaccination (greater potential benefit for the same risk). Healthy adults should be at the end of the list.

      Meanwhile, none of the reports of flu death statistics are based on an actual count. They are all extrapolations and estimates based on 'facts' that are supported mostly by the statistics they support.

      A big hint of that was a report that the 5000 worldwide deaths is an estimate because various authorities have stopped counting. Hrmm, only 5000 and it's too many to count or only 5000 so it's not significant enough to count?

      And of course, the last time the swine flu was going to kill us all, the vaccine turned out to have serious side effects (for reasons never determined) and the swine flue never went beyond a single military base.

      Nevertheless, I was mostly pointing out that being made by the same process doesn't mean the risk is exactly the same and that in any event, double the vaccinations means double the risks. I didn't actually comment on the risk/benefit analysis at all.

  3. Re:Unions are outraged! by maxume · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Isn't that sort of a defining aspect of a union?

    --
    Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
  4. hunh? by Caffinated · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:hunh? by wizardforce · · Score: 5, Informative

      TFA is claiming that mandating the flu vaccine would net quite a bit of profit for whatever pharmaceutical company manufactures them and since Goldman Sachs likely invests in said company, they'd stand to gain indirectly from the mandate and therefore so would the husband/wife pushing the flu mandate. But I agree with you. It looks like TFA's claims are a bit of a stretch. These employees work with people who are often immuno-compromised and getting infected with H1/N1 could kill them.

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
  5. Re:Unions are outraged! by the_humeister · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you have direct patient contact, you should be doing all you can to keep your patients from getting more sick. That means getting your vaccines and getting tests for certain diseases. Or do you think TB testing shouldn't be mandatory for front-line hospital workers as they are now?

  6. Re:antivaxxers on slashdot by Kozz · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    You got it, man. It's a conspiracy!

    attention: this post may contain excessive levels of irony.

    --
    I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
  7. Re:antivaxxers on slashdot by BACPro · · Score: 4, Insightful

    How can you have a positive slant vaccine article?

    "Man gets immunized, doesn't get the sniffles..."

    Not very newsworthy.

  8. Re:The hypocrisy is amazing... by Beelzebud · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't really see why you're conflating this with abortion, and then heaping the blame on liberals. It strikes me as very disingenuous to even compare the two things. You were vaccinated as an infant against diseases, do you also consider that to be a violation of your privacy rights? To me it doesn't seem like a bad idea to have health care workers, in a heavily populated city like New York, to be vaccinated against something they'll likely be exposed to.

    To me this looks more like 'six degrees of separation' being made by a local right-wing radio station.

  9. Re:antivaxxers on slashdot by SetupWeasel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Mandatory vaccines in hospitals make a lot of sense. You don't want a doctor or nurse showing up to work in the ICU and spreading the flu. It is really common sense. For those people who claimed that requiring a vaccine was some sort of invasion of their civil rights, most medical workers I know have to take a lot of vaccines when they start they start the job. Hell, I had a list of vaccines I had to have just to go to college.

    As a health worker, your first responsibility is to your patients, and getting the flu shot is part of that.

  10. Re:The hypocrisy is amazing... by Beelzebud · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not difficult at all. A woman receiving an abortion isn't working at a hospital where her abortion can spread to people with weakened immune systems.

    Vaccinating people who are working at hospitals, who can spread a virus to everyone they come in contact with as part of their job, isn't in the same league with abortion at all.

    You're acting like these are forced vaccinations to the population, and they're not. It seems to me that this is a very common sense thing to do, to keep a virus from being spread in a hospital...