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Indiana Nurses Fired After Refusing Flu Shots On Religious Grounds
Hugh Pickens writes writes "ABC News reports that Indiana University Health Goshen Hospital has fired eight employees after they refused mandatory flu shots, stirring up controversy over which should come first: employee rights or patient safety. The fired nurses include Joyce Gingerich and Sue Schrock who filed appeals on religious grounds. 'I feel like in my personal faith walk, I have felt instructed not to get a flu vaccination, but it's also the whole matter of the right to choose what I put in my body...' adding that she has not had a flu vaccine for 30 years as a result of a choice she made because of her Christian faith. Over the last several years, hospitals have been moving toward mandatory vaccinations because many only have 60 percent vaccination rates says Dr. William Schaffner, chair of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Schaffner adds that nurses in particular tend to be the most reluctant to get vaccinated among health care workers, 'There seems to be a persistent myth that you can get flu from a flu vaccine among nurses,' says Schaffner. 'They subject themselves to more influenza by not being immunized, and they certainly do not participate in putting patient safety first.' But Jane M. Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, says the scientific case for flu vaccine mandates is very weak and that there is no evidence showing that vaccinated workers are less likely to transmit virus. 'The scientific and religious concerns are in a sense backward,' says Orient. 'Advocates of the mandate are full of evangelical zeal and are quick to portray skeptics as wicked and selfish. It's like a secular religion, based on faith in vaccine efficacy and safety.'"
I'm pretty happy to hear they were fired for such dangerous, asinine, stupidity. One can only hope the hospital won't be sued, and if they are, that the hospital wins decisively and very quickly.
you with new jobs.
I had to pee in a cup to get my first job. I didn't like it but I wanted the job.
Should not have been working in a hospital in the first place, from the looks of it. Superstition over science, what a failure.
If you can't understand the concept of herd immunity you don't need to be working in the medical field. Good riddance to ignorant bible-thumpers.
The AAPS is a fringe group with less than 3000 doctors. It's like the American Osteopathy Association: its members are whack jobs, not real doctors.
Of course there's evidence that vaccination reduces transmission. Did OP even try to research that claim or its source before reprinting it? Did we think the pertussis wave in northern California came from some reason other than that non-vax transmit where vax don't?
So tired of this knee-jerk "well let's give time to the other side" bullcrap. No. Figure out if they're insane first.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=vaccinated+less+likely+to+transmit
StoneCypher is Full of BS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flu_vaccine#Benefits_of_vaccination Influenza vaccination has been shown highly effective in health care workers (HCW), with minimal adverse effects. In a study of forty matched nursing homes, staff influenza vaccination rates were 69.9% in the vaccination arm versus 31.8% in the control arm. The vaccinated staff experienced a 42% reduction in sick leave from work (P=.03).[33] A review of eighteen studies likewise found a strong net benefit to health care workers
Of course patient safety should come before religous crap.
I'm very much for equality under the law, and "religious reasons" for refusal amount to no more than someone saying "I don't want to" for unspeficied reasons.
If you refuse to do your job for unspecified reasons (and a nurse leaving themselves prone to serious transmissible infections pretty much counts) then you get fired. If not, then anyone could refuse to do anything they don't like (e.g. hard work). If you allow it for "religious reasons" and not "other reasons" then you are state sponsoring a particular religion over a particular other religion.
After all, serviscope_minorism (in which I believe with utter faith) tells me that that 3p4pm on a wednesday afternoon is the only non holy time I'm allowed to work, and for religious reasons, I need to be allowed to carry a loaded crossbow and running chainsaw as well as wearing a clown outfit.
Religion has nothing to do with it except it gives people "reasons" to make entire series of whacky choices.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Nerd == only interested in tech? False.
Besides, vaccinations are technology.
which is totally what she said
I'm sure we can all agree that the bible definitely doesn't say no to vaccines out-right, since vaccines didn't exist when the bible was written, so this must be an interpretation of a scripture that says something general or vague.
Can anyone give an example of what scripture this might be?
If not, I'm thinking that this "religion" thing is just an excuse that she tells other people, but the real reason is that she just thinks they're bad without any real evidence.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is a well known conservative medical association. Considering they only have about 3,000 members it's kind of silly to even seek their opinion. They certainly have a right to lobby for changes to government health care policy decisions but when they cross the line and contradict verified and tested scientific and medical research they should be ignored. They were one of the groups on the anti-vaccine bandwagon back in 2003.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
But I'm just not seeing the connection to TECHNOLOGY on this story.
Biomedicine (i.e. vaccines) are technology.
Slashdot is supposed to be about the latest technology news, news for nerds.
Bzzzzzt. WRONG. The title of the site is simply "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters."
And even if you want to argue the technology angle to no end, you still haven't explained how this doesn't qualify as "Stuff that Matters".
As was already stated by someone else, Jane M. Orient, M.D., executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, has completely missed the point. The nurses are not rejecting this on any kind of scientific grounds, but on a religious belief. If they chose to reject immunizations based solely on the lack of evidence (debatable) then I would be willing to at least consider their point of view. But as it is based on a religious belief not founded in science, I refuse to even discuss it. Go find some other job where you are not directly responsible for the safety of others if you wish to push your superstitious nonsense around.
Employment is an agreement between two people or legal entities. You do what I say and I'll pay you. If the employees don't want to do what the employer says they need to find another job.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Thou shalt not get a flu shot? Seriously, I can get behind the notion that, if a person has doubts about the efficacy or effects of getting a flu shot, they should be able to choose whether or not to get one without social or professional ramifications. But what is with all of these objections being written down to religious beliefs? Where in the Bible did Jesus ever say anything about flu shots?
> But I'm just not seeing the connection to TECHNOLOGY on this story.
Medicine is technology.
Deal with it.
Furthermore, there are different types of nerds. There are medical nerds too, just as there are astronomical nerds, chemistry nerds, and computer nerds. Would it be nerdy to have a tattoo of caffeine on your arm if you're a pharmacy tech, student, or registered pharmacist? You betcha.
There are model railroad nerds too.
Nerds are everywhere.
OB Topic:
If you are a nurse, your first priority is to not harm patients. This means you should prevent yourself from being a carrier of diseases that can kill, and the flu kills thousands of people every year. There is no excuse except actual allergy, and if that's the case, you should be assigned to push more paperwork as an RN during flu season (LPNs aren't allowed to push as much paperwork).
The accusation that flu vaccine proponents are "just as evangelical" as the anti-vaxxers is an IKYABWAI argument better left for the elementary school recess playground.
--
BMO
How about this for a technology slant to the story? I happen to work in the IT department of a good sized nursing home. It's very, very rare for me to interact with residents. Should I be required to get the flu shot too or should it be limited to people with direct resident interaction? As it stands now, they offer the flu shot free but I can waive it (DOH paperwork is involved either way).
So if the nurse is not okay with the flu shots, she has the choice to go elsewhere for another kind of job.
While when a patient arrives in a hospital, he should not have to choose an establishment which respects the minimal sanitary practices.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
It's a generally free country. People can do and say and think what they want, whether it is supported by evidence or not. However, to avoid legal liability in medicine, and other public safety / public service occupations, one must adhere to evidence-based best practices.
You can secretly believe that getting naked, painting yourself with fresh cow's blood while running in circles and barking at the moon will keep you disease-free, that's your right. However, until your study results are repeated and published in a peer-reviewed journal, don't expect the hospital to pay you to do it or advocate it to patients.
Their rights to control their bodies are not being limited in any way. In fact, their rights are not being limited in any way, period. They are legally allowed, and have every right to refuse a flu shot on religious grounds if they wish. They also, do and should have they right to have an abortion. They do not, however, have the right to a job nor do they have the right to make religious decisions that will affect others, certainly not unwitting patients. Knowingly choosing to expose people to illness is actually a crime, and damn well should be. Their rights are not being limited or violated in any way this case, in fact the opposite is true, they are trying to violate and limit the rights of others.
In today's life lesson, you learn the difference between the life of a human being being treated in hospital and the life of a fetus.
Life needs more saving throws.
They are more than welcome to express their right to control their own bodies, but not when that puts people in their care at risk, which makes this fundamentally different the abortion debate.
Consider this to be closer to a person of a particular religious orientation that requires them to never, ever bathe, wash any part of their body or wear gloves, who wants to work as a chef in a public restaurant... Ain't going to happen.
If their faith prevents them from getting something as simple as a flu shot why are they even working in the field of medicine???
About 48,000 people a year die of influenza. She is in the position to be a super carrier, picking it up from a patient and transmitting it on to many other people. It is in appropriate for her to be a nurse if she refuses to prevent the transmission of disease to patients. She should move into an isolated administrative role well away from other people at best. Firing is appropriate.
People say that you get the "flu" from the flu vaccine because "flu" has become such a generic term for being ill. People say they have the "stomach flu" when they have norovirus or food poisoning of some kind. They say they have a "touch of the flu" when they have a cold. They don't realize that influenza is a specific illness that has a very specific set of symptoms. This is a pet peeve of mine.
That being said, many of the symptoms of the flu or a cold are caused by your immune system's own response to the virus rather than the virus itself. A vaccine causes an immune response too. Some people really do feel slightly unwell after getting a flu vaccine or any other vaccine. This is why they say it gives them the flu: because they don't define the flu properly, and because the vaccine really does make them feel under the weather. If you look at the side effects of the vaccine, they do somewhat resemble the flu (although they're much milder):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flu_vaccine#Side_effects
I don't personally get the flu shot because I don't get the flu that often anyway, and I figure I'll just take my chances. But it's completely reasonable to expect healthcare workers to be vaccinated when they're dealing with some groups of people who are particularly susceptible to the flu.
Did this lady have zero vaccines taken at all? If she has been had zero vaccinations, then she would be justifiably be fired. Did she only refuse the flu vaccine? If she only refused the flu vaccine and took other vaccines, then the religious argument is a cop out.
Vaccinations are not a permanent cure (or prevention rather) for a given disease. Many require regular booster shots, and some are so ineffective (e.g. Hep-B) that the CDC and OSHA have made them optional. This relative lack of effectiveness is often cited by the anti-vaccine folks as evidence that they're not worth getting, although they convenient leave out that most vaccines are otherwise harmless, outbreaks can be contained by short-term and weak vaccines, and some vaccines are amazingly effective, like the rabies vaccine. In fact, the rabies vaccine is amusingly left unmentioned in all of the anti-vaccine literature I've seen, because it stands out as a paragon of long-term and high effectiveness in vaccines.
It's also amazing how polarized people get about this. Either it's the holy grail, and we should take them quickly, no matter what, or they're terrible and should never be taken. People don't seem to talk about picking and choosing based on risk and benefit factors, and none of them talk about spreading them out so as to avoid giving a poor kid the symptoms of too many diseases at once. Vaccines can be hard on the immune system and make kids feel miserable, and it makes me angry that doctors often want to give more than one at a time.
There are no religious grounds here. I am Christian, have read the Bible front to back a couple of times and don't recall any prohibition on flu shots. Basically this person has a personal conviction against flu shots. That is absolutely fine. However, that means the nurses are in violation of company rules which make a lot of sense. It is the hospital's right to fire them.
No controversy here.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
And that doesn't even measure the reduction in harm to patients, but if the nurses are gettingcsick less, they are also protecting patients.
The language is a bit archaic; but Locke really nailed it in his 'Letter Concerning Toleration':
"In the next place: As the magistrate has no power to impose by his laws the use of any rites and ceremonies in any Church, so neither has he any power to forbid the use of such rites and ceremonies as are already received, approved, and practised by any Church; because, if he did so, he would destroy the Church itself: the end of whose institution is only to worship God with freedom after its own manner.
You will say, by this rule, if some congregations should have a mind to sacrifice infants, or (as the primitive Christians were falsely accused) lustfully pollute themselves in promiscuous uncleanness, or practise any other such heinous enormities, is the magistrate obliged to tolerate them, because they are committed in a religious assembly? I answer: No. These things are not lawful in the ordinary course of life, nor in any private house; and therefore neither are they so in the worship of God, or in any religious meeting. But, indeed, if any people congregated upon account of religion should be desirous to sacrifice a calf, I deny that that ought to be prohibited by a law. Meliboeus, whose calf it is, may lawfully kill his calf at home, and burn any part of it that he thinks fit. For no injury is thereby done to any one, no prejudice to another man's goods. And for the same reason he may kill his calf also in a religious meeting. Whether the doing so be well-pleasing to God or no, it is their part to consider that do it. The part of the magistrate is only to take care that the commonwealth receive no prejudice, and that there be no injury done to any man, either in life or estate. And thus what may be spent on a feast may be spent on a sacrifice. But if peradventure such were the state of things that the interest of the commonwealth required all slaughter of beasts should be forborne for some while, in order to the increasing of the stock of cattle that had been destroyed by some extraordinary murrain, who sees not that the magistrate, in such a case, may forbid all his subjects to kill any calves for any use whatsoever? Only it is to be observed that, in this case, the law is not made about a religious, but a political matter; nor is the sacrifice, but the slaughter of calves, thereby prohibited."
Someone who exercises state power('the magistrate') may not either enforce or forbid specific religious practices without doing unjust violence to the religious liberty of others. However, merely attaching the stamp of 'religious practice' to a given action does not render it immune from magisterial power, so long as that power is exercised uniformly, and for the purposes that the magistrate is justly responsible for.
In this case, it would be clearly unjust(and unconstitutional, since the intellectual grunt work on the constitution was mostly done by Lockeian enlightenment types) to, say, suppress the 'Christian Scientists' for their curious abstention from most modern medicine. However, it would in no way be unjust to impose a uniform requirement on all medical workers in close contact with patients that they be immunized against common and dangerous infectious diseases, regardless of whether their objections are religious or otherwise.
Yes, but that is not what the blurb is stating - they are arguring about patient safty. A Flu vaccine helps you build up an immunity to the virus - in other words, if you are exposed to it, you are less likely to get sick, and if you do, the symptoms are not as bad. Getting a flu vaccine does NOT mean that you will not carry the virus. As such, firing on the grounds that they fired these workers on is not based on science, and as such, there is no grounds for termination. Whether the workers refused the vaccine based on religious grounds or not is moot.
Now, if they said the workers were fired becasue the shots were mandnitory to cut down on worker sick time, that would be different, at which point it becomes a question of if an employer has the right to pass mandates that violates workers religious beliefs. However, as these workers are already in the medical field, it's hard for me to believe that they can seriously claim refusing vacinations based on religious beliefs.
Strawman/car analogy FAIL There ARE laws against driving in a such a way to "infringe on the rights of others", so nobody is allowed to drive a car that way.
There SHOULD be laws against religion having any kind of sway over the science that is healthcare. If your religious views conflict with that, drive a bus.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
To play a bit of devil's advocate here: could not the nurse make the exact same argument? The patient's right to be protected ends when it involves injecting a substance into the caregiver. Especially when you consider that if the same caregiver is following proper hygiene for someone in his or her position, chances of infection are already minimal -- even if they got the flu, and even if they actually came into work while infected with the flu.
Not saying that I agree with the nurses' decisions here, but certainly I can understand them from that perspective.
I am required to get vaccinated to travel... it's a requirement of my government and my employer. I go along with it because why not--I trust that what they're injecting me with is a vaccine... I trust that it's been tested... I trust that those tests results are completely revealed and that it is safe.
Today these nurses are being required to get these injections... Many of the initial arguments here are attacking them based on it being a religious decision, and citing statistics that say the vaccine is effective is safe... OK, that's fine... and I agree, it probably is safe and effective.
What happens if tomorrow employers start requiring an injection of an amphetamine-like substance at the start of each shift? It will be chemical altered and the dosages strictly controlled--deemed safe by the medical community and hundreds of thousands of other users. Is it OK for them to require this? You'll be more productive during those hours you're at work, you won't suffer any long term ill effects... so why shouldn't they require this? If you don't like it, you can feel free to find another job (except maybe there aren't any...)
My point being that it can be a slippery slope when we start to allow government and employers to control our bodies under the guise of what is good for us, our jobs, or whatever other reason they want to bring up. ...and the fact that a huge portion of the general population is using a certain substance, or that it's endorsed by the medical community, does not give me a huge amount of faith in it's safety--smoking is a huge example of how that can be wrong.
As far I'm concerned the verdict is still out on cell phones and other microwave-level close range transceivers... I use them constantly, I'm not afraid of them... but I also will not be surprised if during my lifetime strong evidence appears that prolonged and long-term use of these devices correlates to vastly higher instances of cancers.
The first time I heard these stories about some people against vaccines, I got really shocked. Is something only in USA, or is it common in other countries? Just to be fair, I'm brazilian, and here vaccines are faced like a good thing.
Because one human life that happens to be inside the womb of another doesn't matter. We say so, and we are right. Not only do we brook no dissent, we refuse to discuss the subject without using dehumanizing terms.
Also while I know some branches of Christianity are opposed to things like blood transfusions, I have never heard of one being against vaccines or other injections.
Is there a denomination that actually believes this or, is she just using her religion to shield her anti-vaxx beliefs?
No, the vaccinate you against what they guessed last year, would be this years flu. They aren't worthless, just a gamble.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
But just these eight were fired?
Why are just these tiny minority being disciplined? If every other hospital allows free choice, does this one have the authority to without warning start to require it?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
'nuff said
It's interesting how any time a self-professed Christian does something incredibly stupid, it makes it onto Slashdot. You'd almost think the editors are trolling or something.
For the record, there are many Christian sects, and most of them have nothing against modern medicine. Mine is entirely fine with science in general and indeed my church's primate is opposed to teaching creationism in schools.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
ya know?
If I were you, if I didn't have an actual allergy to eggs, I'd get the shot as a matter of course, even though you don't come into contact with patients as much, you do come into contact with surfaces that germy nurses come into contact with.
And some day, we need to come up with a vaccine for norovirus, which I personally saw do its march from one end of a corridor in one wing of a nursing home, make its way down the floor, hop to the next floor, and start its march down that one, towards me, in spite of all efforts of staff to keep it from spreading. I had been in for physical therapy and IV antibiotics (I had a septic knee) and I got out just in time before it hit my room.
--
BMO
"I myself avoid flu shots like the plague" - so what would you do if there was an outbreak of plague and there was a vaccine for it?
I also understand that MRSA (a very serious, and potentially lethal bacteria, if untreated) has been brought on by over sanitization.
AFAICT it's incorrect sanitization. There's some things biologicals can become resistant to and some things they can't...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What does that have to do with it?
No, seriously, what does that have to do with it?
You're comparing something physically arduous to a woman that will give her a dependent minor child and seriously affect the next 18-19 years of her life to a vaccination?
Are you loony?
Personally, I don't get flu vaccines, but that's because I'd rather have the sniffles a couple days out of the year than get poked with a needle. I'm also not working in an environment where I'll be routinely exposed to the flu. If I were, I'd give it a second thought, especially given the benefit that I won't pass it on to the patients I'm responsible for.
It'd be like working at a security firm surfing porn and malware sites as part of my job, and then insisting that I need to use IE 6 without any anti-virus on Windows ME because of religious reasons. Although I guess at that rate, my box would be one hell of a thing to study... if you're interested in malware of the 90s that's already well known....
But, whatever, once again I've been trolled. So, let me ask you this. Would you want to be born to a single mother who blames you for ruining 19 years of her life? Would you want to be born to a woman who doesn't love you?
Careful how you answer. It's not pretty when that happens. Maybe as karma chugs along, you might get to find out next life. (See what I did there by invoking a belief in reincarnation? Oh well. You probably don't.)
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
I also understand that MRSA (a very serious, and potentially lethal bacteria, if untreated) has been brought on by over sanitization. That's what makes MRSA so serious. It resists almost all antibiotic treatments. Studies have been coming out showing where hospitals that are not as clean have lower rates of MRSA infection.
Let's not mix vaccination with overuse of antibiotics... these are two completely different concepts and mechanisms.
With vaccination you are exposed to weakened, or dead, version of the current virus strain... your body attacks it and produces a level of immunity to it so that when you encounter live, stronger, versions of it in your daily life, your body already has a head start in winning the fight. Vaccination doesn't compromise your bodies ability to fight off infection, nor does it necessarily promote mutation and growth of strong viruses...
With antibiotics you are taking about killing off bacteria ... if you do a half-assed job of it, you end up killing the weaker bacteria leaving the field open for the stronger ones... some of the surviving bacteria may have survived simply because they are immune to whatever agent you used to kill the others--now that bacteria will be reproducing in greater numbers than it would have otherwise done because it has less competition... this especially true inside the body where not completing the full course of antibiotics may leave antibiotic resistant bacteria alive (and reproducing) inside of you...
It would probably surprise a lot of people to learn that given the PR and pervasiveness of the flu vaccine there are no actual double-blind studies proving its effectiveness. Now there are plenty of studies "proving" it is effective. But compared to what? The drug companies don't want you to know that it is within the statical level of noise that you are protected. Without proper double-blind testing you have no idea. You're taking it on the drug company's word. If you've seen that then you haven't seen Bad Pharma (Ben Goldacre)
Pharma companies regularly hide data that is unbecoming. Where are the double blind studies? Without that level of thoroughness, you are asking them to take science on faith.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Adding to your anecdote: I've had the flu shot every year without fail since 1995 and haven't had the flu since. Before that I used to have it every winter.
Here here. I was a chronic flu sufferer, with the usual complications, particularly bouts of bronchitis most winters. I finally had a nurse practitioner inform me that I was one of those people who should get a regular flu vaccination. And I've probably had bronchitis only once in the 18 years since. Getting my daughter vaccinated made a similar improvement in her winters.
"'Advocates of the mandate are full of evangelical zeal and are quick to portray skeptics as wicked and selfish. It's like a secular religion, based on faith in vaccine efficacy and safety.'"
No, its based on evidence of efficacy and safety.
People say that you get the "flu" from the flu vaccine because "flu" has become such a generic term for being ill. People say they have the "stomach flu" when they have norovirus or food poisoning of some kind. They say they have a "touch of the flu" when they have a cold. They don't realize that influenza is a specific illness that has a very specific set of symptoms. This is a pet peeve of mine.
Actually you cannot get the flu from many of the modern vaccines, because you do not receive the actual dead/weakened viruses at all. Look up e.g. subunit vaccines http://www.niaid.nih.gov/topics/Flu/Research/vaccineResearch/pages/technologies.aspx
No, the vaccinate you against what they guessed last year, would be this years flu. They aren't worthless, just a gamble.
And here's the way I like to think of the gamble. When you actually have the flu and you feel like shit, would you take a 1 in 3 roll of the dice if your symptoms could magically evaporate and disappear? You would. So I don't see what difference it really makes if it isn't 100%. If you avoid the flu part of the time, you're happier.
The patient's right to be protected ends when it involves injecting a substance into the caregiver.
The patient isn't injecting anything into the caregiver, unless it's precisely the kind of nursing home I want to eventually be placed into.
Especially when you consider that if the same caregiver is following proper hygiene for someone in his or her position, chances of infection are already minimal -- even if they got the flu, and even if they actually came into work while infected with the flu.
Well, that's not true at all. They usually don't wear masks in nursing homes, because they're supposed to have human faces. So in fact, if the caregivers are infected with the flu, they are very likely to spread it to the very group of people most likely to die from it, elderly shut-ins.
Not saying that I agree with the nurses' decisions here, but certainly I can understand them from that perspective.
They're part of a system of health care that gives people injections for their health, they don't have a fucking toe to stand on let alone a foot or god forbid a leg.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
and get fired
dont wear the dosimeter in a nuclear facility ... and get fired
dont wear prtective gloves while working on certain tasks ... and get fired
dont wear breathing masks when working with some chemicals ... and get fired
dont go to health tests when working as a cook ... and get fired
What is the death rate directly attributable to Flu shots? Then what's the death rate directly attributable to the Flu for those not vaccinated? If the death rate from the shot is lower, and I'm certain it is, then then how can any one make any kind of logical argument against getting the vaccine? Maybe someone can find the facts on this?
It all starts at 0
Devil's Advocate time here. I've long since stopped caring about the abortion debate, but how does that make it different from the abortion debate? The whole abortion debate is over whether abortion DOES put "people in their care at risk". Is the fetus a person, in other words.
Addlepated - punk & metal
There's more and more evidence that people who "Have Never Been Sick a Day in Their Lives", are in fact, typhoid Marys. They get colds and the flu just like the rest of us, but their immune systems don't go into overdrive, and they don't have symptoms, but they do spread germs to everyone else. Here's an article w.r.t. SARS http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971211000245
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
The reason health care workers are required to be vaccinated is that someone contracting the flu starts to shed the flu virus for some hours before other symptoms develop. By the time someone begins to feel bad, sneeze, etc. one has already been spreading the illness for hours. (One can see how a virus that behaved in this way would be evolutionarily advantaged over a virus that spread only after the patient first noticed other symptoms.)
Since the spreading mechanism is primarily via the hands touching the nose and mouth, and then touching other surfaces (like doorknobs or keyboards) that are then touched by others, most hospitals with which I am familiar have a different policy: If an employee refuses the flu vaccine, the employee is not terminated, but is required to wear a face mask at all times when at work. This breaks the spreading pathway, albeit less efficiently.
Many hospitals even provide free, voluntary, flu vaccinations to the family members of employees, to reduce the possibility that virus particles shed by, say, a sick child will not be carried by the health care worker into the hospital (for example, in hair or on clothes). This has the added benefit of reducing time away from work to take care of, e.g., a child sick with the flu.
Not that my anecdotal evidence matters, but I can attest to getting the flu shot and being sick after.
My mother's a nurse and is, or at least was, a firm believer in the flu shot. She use to make me and my older sister get them every year. She stopped forcing me when I was seven because I was always violently ill afterwards. I hadn't had a flu shot in 20 years and never had more than the occasional head cold. Then last year my wife, who is also a firm believer in the flu shot, was pregnant and asked me to get one for her and the baby's sake. I did and wasn't terribly ill, but for a few days later I was nauseated and sluggish. I got a vaccine this year anyway, but this time I was violently ill. I ended up in the hospital for two days with sever "flu like symptoms" according to the doctor, who wouldn't believe I had gotten my shot. I'm not allergic to eggs so I'm not sure why I would be so sick all of the sudden after 20 years of being pretty healthy.
I definitely believe in the logic of vaccinating as many people as possible and that it's beneficial to everyone, but I also feel the flu shot either doesn't always work as well as some believe, or that it can make some people sick. My wife says it's a one off and I probably already had the flu this year before getting the shot, which is obviously why I got sick. I'll get it again next year and see what happens, but if I'm as sick next year as I was this year, that's the end of it for me.
Also, not to wear out my tinfoil hat, but I'd like to know how much the pharmaceutical industry makes off the flu vaccines and possibly what kind of effect that might have on "research" into it's benefits. I tried to look it up, but only found a few (dubious) sources stating that while they make less off vaccines than other drugs, they still me astronomical amounts. If true, I kind of see that as an incentive for them to lie about the benefits, it's a huge cash cow and you wouldn't want people to all the sudden find out it's a lot of hokey.
I also understand that MRSA (a very serious, and potentially lethal bacteria, if untreated) has been brought on by over sanitization. That's what makes MRSA so serious. It resists almost all antibiotic treatments. Studies have been coming out showing where hospitals that are not as clean have lower rates of MRSA infection.
MRSA is resistant to antibiotics due to the overuse of . . . antibiotics. I think you're conflating MRSA with theories about the polio epidemic.
I am not a crackpot.
'I feel like in my personal faith walk, I have felt instructed not to get a flu vaccination, but it's also the whole matter of the right to choose what I put in my body...' adding that she has not had a flu vaccine for 30 years as a result of a choice she made because of her Christian faith
Of course she can choose to be vaccinated or not. That is her legal right. However when vaccination demonstrably reduces risk to fellow patients and co-workers then she is welcome to seek employment elsewhere. Her religion has NOTHING to do with this. If she can make a credible scientific argument that such a vaccination would be useless then fine but I don't give a crap about her particular brand of religious craziness. Hospitals require vaccinations for TB and a variety of other diseases and do so for very good reasons. Influenza is no different. If she really believes what she said in the quote above I don't want her anywhere near patients because she is a danger to them.
Does anyone know what the Flying Spaghetti Monster's take on flu shots is?
Throughout all this discussion no one has talked about what the flu vaccine is. It is not the same as other vaccinations. Influenza strains change from year to year. Each year the drug companies try to predict what existing strains and / or new strains will be dominant several months in the future when "flu season" strikes. They then manufacture many millions of doses before they have any evidence of what the reality of the season will actually be (because the manufacturing process is time consuming and somewhat risky production wise). Some seasons they do better than others, depending on how well they prognosticated that season ahead of time.
Thus the flu vaccine is a bit of a shotgun approach for the masses. I'm sure many of you know of people who had the annual flu vaccination and yet became sick that season and tested positive for influenza (there were reports in the local paper about this already, as the flu season has hit early he). Obviously the effectiveness is quite low, but probably the overall mass advantage does prevent some infections from incurring, again simply due to the massive scale involved. It's is a billion dollar industry which I have some degree of inside information about due to local marketing and distribution of the flu vaccine which involved family members.
Does the overall effectiveness of the annual flu vaccine warrant the tremendous amount of money spent on it? Maybe. I do know that billions of dollars are involved in this industry, and any time that much money is involved there are also significant amounts of money spent protecting the industry and providing justification that it is necessary. So take that with a grain of salt.
Better known as 318230.
Except that the Flu is transmitted through cough and mucus. If you're not sick from the flu even with it in you you're not transmitting the Flu. Use some critical thinking Gravis777
Do you Gentoo!?
n/t
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Exactly, I wish I had mod points to give you. It sounds like she came to the idea of not taking vaccines on her own and is using her faith as the reason for the decision.
Its not what it is, its something else.
Steiner's anthroposophy movement (Waldorf schools etc) actively decries vaccinations, and there are some evangelical splinter denominations that refuse all medical inventions based on a bible passage that you should put your trust in faith. But all main stream religions support vaccinations.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
Join mine. It requires you to work only on 2 days because 5 days are holy and you have to spend them praising the lord. You're free to praise him in whatever way you choose, too.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I wonder if these nurses have no vaccines, or if they are just offended by the flu vaccine. For example, I though all nurses have been required to have a Hepatitis vaccine for many years.
My hospital gave us two options: 1, get the shot; 2, wear a mask intended for droplet isolation when in direct patient care. What's funny about the latter option is you only have to wear the mask while say in the patient's room. Droplets swirl, and travel and other nurses breathe it in and exhale it in patient's rooms. It's fucking punishment and I'm surprised it hasn't gotten legal attention any sooner. We ask every patient admitted if they've had their flu shot. If they say no, then we ask if they'd like one. If they refuse it: end of discussion! This could be an elderly patient ready to catch the flu from another inpatient and then take it to the nursing home and hack it up there, however everyone has a right to refuse. Nevertheless, many hospitals are cramming it down health care worker's throats and saying they don't have a right to refuse? Bullshit. I'm glad this is hitting the fan.
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Flu shots are a hoax. I've worked in a hospital where about half of the people chose to have the flu shot. Most of them got sick immediately afterwards and there was no evidence that having taken the shot, would prevent them from getting the flu later that year. People who never took the shot got sick just as much as the people who did.
I once claimed to be a "Samsonite" christian to give my school grief about its "dress" code.
"I feel like in my personal faith walk, I have felt instructed not to get a flu vaccination, but it's also the whole matter of the right to choose what I put in my body"
I absolutely agree that you have the personal right to refuse a flu vaccine. Please, go along and exercise that right far away from patients who need medical care by professional people... you know... the ones that put their "beliefs" away from science.
Julio Henrique Morimoto juliohm@gmail.com
This has nothing to do with religious rights. This is about these women making asinine choices. If their religion bars them from being nurses, then they shouldn't be nurses. It's really that simple.
Can you imagine a muslim woman being hired to work as a stripper and then suing because she has to take her clothes off? Does anyone think she has a right to work as a fully clothed stripper?
The Amish are doing it right. Rather than force modern society to bend to their outdated religious notions, they remove themselves from modern society. So should those so called nurses.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
I'm fine with firing them over this, as this seems to be a science-based issue where there's good scientific evidence to support the idea that flu vaccination has a meaningful public health benefit. (I'd also support a denial of insurance coverage for people who don't get vaccinated and get whatever illness they could have been vaccinated for).
I'm more intrigued with the low, 60 percent vaccination rate. Why would this be? Are you telling me 40% of these people are anti-vaccine lunatics? Or is there something they know, or think they know, that causes them to avoid this vaccine?
You have a valid point, but you decided to devolve into random insults and sarcasm while making it. A shame.
You can't use religion as a means to get your own way. The problem with religion is that if they allow you to use it to get out of a needle or a RFID tag ( old story ) then every single time you don't want to do something they have to accept religion as a way out. They either have to accept it or not and I think it's safer to just deny it.
How many people commented to say: "Good, they do not have a right to a job, they can just go work somewhere else"
Also commented in condemnation of corporations requiring Facebook and other social media passwords.
Also AAPS is not making any spectacular claim. They have stated that their is no empirical evidence based studies to back up any forced vaccine laws. If their is not, it is simply bad science to assume something works and force it on everyone. End of story, I do not care if the AAPS is crazy most of the time; That is how science works, it does not matter who it comes from.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
If the only other option is not being born at all, the answer should be pretty obvious. If my life was really not worth living under those conditions, I could always kill myself, but at least it would be my choice and not someone else's (see what I did there by invoking a person's right to choose? Oh well. You probably don't).
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Religion is a red-herring in this story, if a nurse has the option to refuse a vaccine it should be for any personal reason. The question that I am the most interested in, is if the hospital has a similar policy for their doctors. If the vaccine is so obviously positive, then surely every doctor on staff would also have it. If every doctor has it and agrees that it is good, then I fully support mandatory vaccinations for nurses. I suspect however, that this is not the case, and that the mandate for vaccination is coming from somebody on the business management side of the hospital rather than somebody on the healthcare side of things.
And adding to your anecdote I've never had a flu shot and I don't recall the last time I had the flu. I'd say at least 20 years (1992) but it's possible I had it once in that time and simply forgotten.
I do believe in the efficacy of the flu shot, I just never bothered to get one. Maybe if I get the flu this year I'll change my tune next year.
I would probably get my plague vaccine, and then continue avoiding my flu shots.
This isn't a matter of work discrimination against religion... it's religion discriminating against the job.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The other method to reduce transmission is prevent caregivers from working in the hospital if they show signs of being sick with any significantly harmful highly contagious disease. If they get sick way too often with such diseases then they should be fired as being not fit for the job - because the very same practices (washing hands regularly, etc) that reduce the odds of you spreading disease from patient to patient, also reduce the odds of you contracting such diseases. If they are not part of your lifestyle and habit, perhaps you should not be working in the hospital as a caregiver.
In fact if everyone was forced to quarantine themselves till they are fully recovered at the first sign of sickness then most contagious diseases will have to evolve to not be so obvious. This would result in more diseases becoming less acutely harmful.
Yes a disease might still be contagious before you start getting a fever, coughing/sneezing/puking/shitting a lot, but that unpleasant stuff happens because the viruses that caused those happen to spread better. So if we started strictly quarantining ourselves immediately on any signs of such stuff then these diseases would have to evolve to not do such stuff - because diseases that do such stuff would not spread so well.
But I think this is never going to happen unless some really nasty disease starts spreading and we don't have decent countermeasure (or don't have one that scales well enough). Everyone (bosses, employees, teachers, students, parents etc) seems fine with people going to work/school because they're not sick enough... "Don't be a baby" etc. As long as that continues, most people will have a high chance of getting that unpleasantly sick.
I've read through some of the comments with interest. The general consensus seems to be that the employer can demand whatever the employer wants. That probably reflects the US centric nature of the commentators.
However, I have problems with enforced medical intervention. It's been done before, serilization of the mentally ill, forced abortion (china one woman one child policy).
I also have problems with withholding medical intervention - we've recently had a case in the UK courts where a mother didn't want her child treated for a brain tumour. The courts eventually ruled that the operation could go ahead.
I would strongly oppose any measure that required doctors to be involved with euthanasia but at the same time I'm critical of the current rules that require people to refuse food and starve themselves to death because nobody is allowed to help them to die.
I don't know the ins and outs of this particular issue. In the UK we do have the concept of a notifiable disease and, should you contract one, you can have your freedoms limited up to an including being forced to stay in an isolation ward. But I've never heard any suggestion that flu vaccines should be made compulsory for anybody.
Personally, I think something like this should be legal issue and not an employment issue. If employers think this is an important intervention then they should lobby their legislators to make it compulsory and then people can have a chance to vote on it. My inclination should anything like this be proposed in the UK is that I would be opposed on moral and ethical grounds regardless of the efficacy of the intervention. I'd be willing to be swayed by a convincing argument though (but because employers should be allowed to enforce it isn't a convincing argument to me)
Tim.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
'There seems to be a persistent myth that you can get flu from a flu vaccine among nurses,' says Schaffner.
Tell this jackass that I sit and watch a half a dozen coworkers come down with this bug about once a year. . . . right after they get the vaccination. Oh, yea, I know, it's just coincidence.
If the reasoning for her getting the flu shot is that she will present less risk to her patients then why not have her wear a full body condom? The argument of "protect the patients" is eerily reminiscent of "protect the children". I'm sure the substances in flu vaccinations are just as harmless as so many other substances deemed "safe" for use such as DDT, etc.. It's not like big corporations have influence in government decisions, heavens no!
I'm sorry, but fuck your personal religious beliefs.
You are a health care worker. Your job is help people stay healthy. If you willfully chose to be a Typhoid Mary, then you are doing the exact opposite of what you had agreed to do and have no business being in health care.
PERIOD.
There are a few problems as I see it...
1. Flu Vaccine's effectiveness is questionable. Irony, almost everyone I know who gets the flu vaccine, still gets the flu. And they always seem to be told "Oh the problem was this year, the vaccine didn't match up well to the active strains". But I hear this EVERY year.
2. Flu Vaccine can still cause a few days worth of flu like symptoms.
3. How often are people actually catching the flu? particularly a strain of illness they would not get if they had the vaccine.
4. Where does it stop and at what risk? We have employers mandating vaccines. Which do pose risks, albeit usually very slim. But do we support the removal of personal liberty to choose what to do with one's own body? Really? Are we sure? Is pro-choice philosophy bunk...why is it I we hear we should have the right to choose for our bodies...but then are often told we don't have that right. Sure, one might say, well you have a choice. You can choose to get the vaccine per your employer's requirement or loose your job. What if an employer said "Children reduce productivity of my workers. If any woman gets pregnant and chooses to keep the child. She will be fired." Is that likewise fair? It's really not that different in scope of "right to your own body".
Children reduce the efficiency of workers. From now on, any of my employees will be mandated to have abortions if they get pregnant - or they will be fired.
You are working and being paid to do so...
"But for stem cells first 20 years of exsistence we couldnt do anything because christians cock blocked the research"
Actually, there was a lot that could be done. Just not with public funds for fetal research. Oh, and please show me significant medical successes involving fetal stem cells.
The truth is, almost ALL the successes have been with adult or auxilliary stem cells. Which are less reactive, and less prone to turning into raging tumors and growth.
I actually like to err on the side of life. Humanity has a poor record when it doesn't do so.
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." - Ronald Reagan
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
I wonder if these people realize that attributing your personal opinion to God is blasphemy. The train of though is "my opinion is right", "God is always right", "therefor this is God's opinion". Of course everyone has opinions and everyone believes their opinions are correct.
If you are a nurse / doctor / employee who feels it is your right to have such a sensitive job and your beliefs regardless of religious basis define for you no vaccine, you are well within your rights; but you will be subject to a harsher scrutiny.
1. you are personally libel for your patients health, not the medical facility
2. you will wear a face mask from the moment you walk into the facility to the moment you leave, and the medical facility is not required to provide you the daily supply.
3. you will sterilize your hands each and every time you take off your latex gloves and then instantly put them on again and will wear them the entire time you're at the facility, and as stated before, the medical facility is not required to provide you with this supply
4. if you do not like these safety guidelines imposed, feel free to seek employment in a medical facility that does not impose such restrictions.
5. if you are sick, you will not return to work for 5 days after you are healthy again at your own expense.
6. if you contract a virus at work that you refused vaccination for you will be immediately dismissed from your job with no further compensation, either submit to return to work based on health or termination, which ever the medical facilities guidelines are.
If you are a patient who cannot be moved from the facility due to several factors (distance, specialty care, public etc...)
1. you have the right of refusal for allowing a non-vaccinated employee from tending to you
2. should you waive those rights, you release the non-vaccinated medical professional free of liability for contraction of the sickness the vaccines were for
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Likewise if your religion is against hand washing, nursing might not be the field for you. I would say it is that simple.
In addition, I'm going to go out on a limb and say BS to the whole "my religion" is against that crap. Show me someplace in the bible that makes mention of flu shots. Also if they want to take some general principle further and say that they don't feel right about interfereing with Gods plan or something stupid like that, why they heck are they working in Medicine? Please get these nuts out of health care as quickly as possible.
...and yor, it was said on high, with some clearity, and rightly so, God did say, Thou shalt not, takest yon Flu Shot and it was so. So we all pray, Amen.
At which point does the fetus stop being a parasite and start being an organism capable of independent life? Before that point, I don't consider the fetus to be someone that could be put at risk, and it just so happens that most abortion laws stop allowing legal abortions for non-medical reasons at around the point where a baby is unlikely to survive outside the womb.
There is also the difference in magnitude to consider - one pregnant person could harm what, three, four "other people" maximum with an abortion (taking the most usual extreme cases, with quintuplets etc being the unusual extremes), while a nurse suffering from an infectious disease can conceivably harm hundreds during the course of a single shift.
"Don't take a flu shot."
Christian grounds my ass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Some people were able to express their religious beliefs. That there were consequences comes with the territory. Now they are martyrs for their faith.
The hospital continues to provide care for its patients.
Win/Win all around.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
<trollface>So if in the interest of public health and safety the whole population should be immunized, would you be okay with rounding up everybody and give them flu shots despite their objections, by force if necessary? </trollface>
I'm fine with my employer demanding what substances won't be in my body when I'm at work like alcohol, drugs etc. but I'm a lot less fine with my employer demanding what substances will be, like a flu vaccine. This isn't just talking about wearing a clean uniform or washing your hands or whatever they force you do to at work that you can stop doing when you leave, it's essentially giving your employer the right to decide over your whole life and medicate you as they see fit. Screw religion, this is my body and the sole authority on what I put in it should be me. It's scary how many here on Slashdot are willing to sign away their freedom to scientific statistics just to spite religious superstition. Like US employees aren't their employer's bitches enough as it is...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Nurses with egg allergies could use the egg free vaccine
Sorry but coughing on a patient is not a basic human right but having children is.
Regarding herd immunity; Herd immunity works great if the entire population has a perfect immunity. the more varied (trending downward) the immunity levels of the populous, the greater likelihood you have actually helped spread the virus.
I like your argument for the sake of the general population. Americans overuse antibiotics and generally ignore the beneficial impacts of occasionally getting sick and exposed to a wide variety of viruses, illnesses, etc.
However, that doesn't hold true for healthcare workers. Some hospitals that might not be as clean have less MRSA, but it doesn't mean they have less bacteria. People might still get infections in those hospitals, it's just easier to treat.
The flu, on the other hand, is okay for some, bad for others, and terminal for some. Nurses might interact with elderly cancer patients, immuno-compromised children, and very sick, homeless, drug-addicts - all in the same day. Every effort should be made to keep what is afflicting patient A from affecting patient B. Hand-sanitizers are by every door in a hospital not so the patients can sanitize their hands but so their handlers can.
They regularly put themselves in high-risk situations and should make every effort to minimize risk. If they aren't alright with that, they should find a different place to work. Not every nurse has to get a flu shot at all establishments, but it is becoming more popular - just as hand-sanitizing and gloves have in the past couple decades.
"Just not with public funds for fetal research. "
shutting down federal funding chilled the whole industry. Becasue if you separately invested in it, and you has other research you could get that funding cut as well.
", and please show me significant medical successes involving fetal stem cells."
you mean that thing that the religious right got stifled for decades?
Transplanting a kidney never cured anybody until someone had the idea of trying it, and then worked out the regimen that would prevent a transplanted kidney from being rejected by its grateful recipient. If they weren't allowed to work out the regime, it still wouldn't be a treatment.
"I actually like to err on the side of life. "
but you aren't. You are siding with lies and detriment to life.
Do you know where embryonic stem cells come from? left over of in vitro fertilization. Instead of throwing them in the trash, lines were created and science was being done.
No one is, was, or has every kill anyone in any way shut to get stem cells.
But I"m sure you will continue to blindly follow what every charismatic jackass in the religion your parents tuck you with regardless of any actual facts.
"Humanity has a poor record when it doesn't do so."
No, we don't. Humanity has a great track record. Pretty much better then any other mammal.
Yes, there are tragedies, but overall things keep improving. Fewer wars, less bloody wars, better health care, a global system that helps people 1000's of miles apart.
It's not perfect, but overall it keep getting better.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I don't know, a lot of people pay attention to what the AMA (another political advocacy group) says.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The same faith that says women have no right to choose to not be a birthing chamber, you sickening hipocrite?
Except, during cold and flu season, most people do have a cough or sneeze anyways, due to allergies or colds or whatnot. So just because you are not sneezing or coughing as a result of the flu because you built up the immunity, most people are still coughing and sneezing, and can be carrying and hence, spreading the virus.
The flu vacine is to help keep you from getting sick, not from passing it on to others. You are still a carrier, and a transmitter.
Careful with that thin edge, Eugene; that same phrase can be easily applied to justify the creeping police state lead by the TSA and endless war against stateless groups by the DOD and friends.
Suppose there's a new vaccin that, if taken by nurses, has been proven to completely rule out any chance of them infecting patients. But, as a side effect, it causes X% of the vaccinated to die instantly. Or, on average, those vaccinated live Y days shorter. How large may X or Y be for you to still be a proponent of obligatory vaccination? (And what if X and Y are unknown?)
What if we not only requite nurses to vaccinate, but also policemen, firemen and teachers? What the hell, why not forcibly vaccinate everyone? That would help stop a flu epidemic.
And while we're at it, why not have everyone implant an RFID and put a halt to terrorism!
it's possible the OP is experiencing a correct immune reaction, including emission of cytokines, but without an actual widespread infection of replicating influenza. Could "feel sick" but not be actually infected.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes indeed, everyone should have a right to their own body and what goes into it provided it does not gravely endanger anyone else. Fortunately for them, not getting a flu shot is not so dangerous so these nurses should not be forced to do it. One thing people should *not* have a right to is a job where you refuse to follow the rules of said job. It shouldn't matter that it is for religious reasons. I could believe in my own crazy version of Christianity that says it's a sin to wash my hands. I should be free to do that. I sure as shit shouldn't be allowed to work in a hospital or even a restaurant.
1. You should be free to put whatever you want into your body (provided it doesn't harm others)
2. You should be free to practice whatever religion you want (provided it doesn't harm others)
3. You should be entitled to a job even if you can't or won't do it to the employer's satisfaction because of religious beliefs.
People frequently confuse these statements. They say and think they want 1 and 2 (which are very reasonable), but what they actually want is 3 (which is completely retarded).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
From the Wikipedia link in the article summary:
"The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a politically conservative non-profit association founded in 1943 to "fight socialized medicine and to fight the government takeover of medicine." Many of the political and scientific viewpoints advocated by AAPS are considered extreme or dubious by other medical groups.[1] Notable members include Ron Paul and John Cooksey; the executive director is Jane Orient, a member of the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.
"The organization opposes mandatory vaccination,[11] universal health care[12] and government intervention in healthcare.[10][13] The AAPS has characterized the effects of the Social Security Act of 1965, which established Medicare and Medicaid, as "evil" and "immoral",[14] and encouraged member physicians to boycott Medicare and Medicaid."
I'm not sure that they bring an unbiased perspective to the issue.
God is imaginary
Sure you may be right, but you're still less contagious for a shorter time, the virus might not even gain a foothold at all. In this sense carry/transmission window is very much smaller. So if you also follow hygiene guidelines about shielding sneezing and washing hands then risk of transfer to vulnerable patients are dramatically reduced and there's no doubt lives are saved.
On the one hand, flu shots are so inherently stupid, it boggles the mind that a *hospital* of all employers would make them mandatory. They really ought to know better. Flu shots do, to a first approximation, absolutely nothing -- they certainly have not been shown to be effective enough to warrant any kind of mandatory policy.
On the other hand, I am rather intimately familiar with the Christian faith, and it provides absolutely no valid religious grounds for refusing vaccination. Some of the cults[1] (e.g., J.W.) refuse transfusions and/or vaccinations, but I'm not aware of any legitimately Christian denomination that teaches against them, and the Bible certainly does not.
On the gripping hand, I'm not sure this case is really about flu shots at all.
---
Footnotes:
[1] - I am using the word "cult" here in the theological sense -- a group that claims to be rooted in Christianity but denies core tenets of the faith (usually, the diety of Christ).
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
but for some reason, only religion seems to get a pass on bad beliefs.
Oh, and please show me significant medical successes involving fetal stem cells.
The truth is, almost ALL the successes have been with adult or auxilliary stem cells.
Fetal stem cells have only "been around" for 10-15 years. Adult cells have been worked on since the late 60s. Additionally as your quote says, fetal cells have been "cock-blocked" by the religious nuts claiming piles of cells are babies. Expecting comparable results with only 1/5 the time, 1/10 the support, and 1/50 of the funding is just insane.
Expecting comparable results with only 1/5 the time, 1/10 the support, and 1/50 of the funding is just insane.
But then as a programmer... I'm fairly used to those expectations. I shouldn't be surprised they infect other industries as well.
I challenge you to post proof of efficacy. 1. A single institution that scientifically correlated its mandatory vaccination policy to improved outcomes, decreased incidence of flu. 2. A single study showing large scale immunizations of populations against influenza an effective method of decreasing incidence of flu. -
In case anyone wants to know, it's the 13th Commandment that covers this: "Thou shalt not be vaccinated against influenza". Unfortunately the tablet containing Commandments 11-15 was lost after Moses dropped it after coming down off the mountain after his long conversation with a burning bush.
Thankfully there was a young entrepreneur present named Steven, son of Jobs, who was able to copy down all the information from the broken tablet onto something he called an iScroll, and then proceeded to convince people that in order to stay in God's good graces they needed to have a copy for themselves, which he of course would provide for a substantial fee. And lo, the masses came and paid, and paid, and paid, making Steven quite a wealthy man. Unfortunately it, and he, were short lived. Soon after Moses filed a complaint with the burning bush's patent and copyright office God smote Steven, son of Jobs, and damned him to Hell, where he somehow manages to convince Satan to let him out every few hundred years just for shits and giggles.
And that's why religious people shouldn't get flu vaccines. Understand now?
Mod +1: Case closed.
Yes, but that is not what the blurb is stating - they are arguring about patient safty. A Flu vaccine helps you build up an immunity to the virus - in other words, if you are exposed to it, you are less likely to get sick, and if you do, the symptoms are not as bad. Getting a flu vaccine does NOT mean that you will not carry the virus. As such, firing on the grounds that they fired these workers on is not based on science, and as such, there is no grounds for termination. Whether the workers refused the vaccine based on religious grounds or not is moot.
I don't have anything peer reviewed to reference, but this is one of those situations where I feel the "common sense" argument is rather powerful. If you are effectively vaccinated it is less likely that the virus can take hold in your system. This means that if you come in contact with it you can still spread it by then contacting other things, at least until you clean up, but your body will not be producing virus cells on its own.
Effective vaccination reduces the number of sources of the disease in the environment, so logically unless the environment was beyond saturation with sources this will reduce the chance of it spreading.
Less people sick with contagious diseases = less disease spread, all else being equal. Is that really a hard or controversial concept?
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
Why are people who do not believe in modern medicine allowed to work in hospitals?
The entire reason for hospitals is to care for patients. Patients come first. No exceptions.
Obviously if they caught the plague, they'd catch a vaccine too, since they weren't really avoiding the plague if they ended up getting it.
If there were a religious objection to flu vaccination, which is not plausible, then it's a religious objection to taking the job, just as Buddhists can't be slave traders.
If you pull out a 12 week old fetus, can it survive on its own? It can't breathe because its lungs don't work, nor does it have the muscles to move its chest, it can't eat because its stomach and intestines don't work, it has no immune system, it's major organs don't function - they're still developing.
For all intents and purposes, in the first trimester the fetus is a part of the women. It's not a lot different than her eggs or a man's sperm.
Immunize.org: "Protection from influenza vaccine is thought to persist for a year because of waning antibody and because of changes in the circulating influenza virus from year to year." Thought to? WTF does that mean?
Why become a nurse in the first place?
Anyhow, best to step aside and let nature trim the breeding pool. Morons.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Christian "Scientists" believe that all modern medicine is inherently fraudulent, and participating in it is a lack of faith in God keeping you healthy. On the one hack, yeah, they aren't likely to want to take vaccinations. On the other hand, while I could easily imagine them caring for the sick in general (this is one of the things Christian Scientists are supposed to do, in fact, in the same way that many Christian sects instruct their followers to care for the unfaithful and bring them back to the "right" path), I have a hard time imaging one becoming a registered nurse and working in a hospital.
Besides, while I can kind of see the argument against flu shots (their effectiveness varies, some people do have reactions to the mostly dead virus causing short-lived flu-like symptoms after getting the injection, death from influenza is mostly preventable today, etc.) I can't imagine any hospital worker not having received some of the truly standard and often mandatory (even in day-to-day life, such as going to public school) vaccinations. Measles/mumps/rubella? Tetanus? Vaccinations like that are a lot less on the minds of most people (you get them as kids, and then maybe a booster a decade later), but I sure as hell don't want to be treated by any hospital staff who hasn't had them, especially if I need to be put on immuno-suppressants or am for some other reason immuno-compromised......
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
All this is nonsense, period. Jobs have requirements. Sometimes those requirements are a button-up shirt, sometimes those requirements are to work on Sunday, sometimes those requirements are to serve people ham, sometimes those requirements are to sell contraceptives, sometimes those requirements are to get flu shots.
If people have religious objections to doing those things, they need to find another employer. (Of course, job duties should be clearly explained in advance so that people can actually decide whether or not to take the job.)
Now, yes, it's illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of religion, so if, for example, a gas station decided, to keep from having to employ Jews and Muslims, that all workers must eat a piece of ham upon arrival at work (For an absurd example), yeah, okay, that's a lawsuit, because there is no logical reason to have workers do that except to exclude certain religions.
But things that are perfectly reasonable job duties? No. Workers don't get to claim some sort of religious exception.
And please note that I say this as someone who is _incredibly_ pro-worker and in favor of all sorts of corporate restriction...in fact, that is precisely _why_ I say that: Because 90% of the time these 'kowtowing to worker religions' end up being that some workers and their employers share a religion, so the workers get away with whatever they want, and meanwhile other minority-religion workers keep silent out of fear of losing their job. (How many workplaces follow Kosher rules, for example? How many banks have some way to keep Muslim employees from having to charge people interest?)
The idea that 'religion' lets people opt out of their job is an _incredibly_ bad policy to start that is used almost solely for _majority_ religions to argue even more special privileges, and a really bad idea for the country at large to get in its head that is how things are supposed to work.
Although it is a less stupid idea that _corporations_ somehow have freedom of religion, and thus don't have to follow any laws that 'they' don't believe in, another idiotic idea that has shown up recently. (Hint: Corporations do not have beliefs.) This is yet another incredibly stupid and destructive idea. If you do not wish to follow some part of corporate law because that part is against your religion, btzzzzz, you don't get to form a corporation and get the special privileges we've given corporations under the law _because_ they follow corporate law...thank you for playing.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Glad they were fired. Here's a thought - don't work in the healthcare industry around SICK PEOPLE if you don't want to do what is necessary to help keep those SICK PEOPLE from getting sicker. I have a friend w/a child who has leukemia. The last thing she wants is for you to bring your illness to her child (that has NO IMMUNE SYSTEM) & possibly kill her. I just can't believe they are so idiotic to think that their needs s/come over the patient. Then get out of healthcare. You s/not be a nurse. I w/be pissed if I was in the hospital sick & you gave me the flu & made me worse because you didn't care enough to get a vaccine. Religion - BS. God didn't tell you not to get a flu shot idiot.
Oh and they can give "false positives" (not really false) if you eat too many poppy seeds from normal rather than opium poppies.
Off-topic, I know, but that isn't quite right, the reason for the potential false positives is that the seeds do indeed come from genuine opium poppies, there is no such thing as edible seed from "normal" poppies. Poppy seeds found in food products all derive from Papaver Somniferum AKA the opium poppy, and yes it has been proven that eating as little as a single poppyseed bagel can result in a positive test. The seeds contain very small amounts of opium, not enough to produce pharmacological effects, which is why you can eat them, but modern urinalysis is sensitive enough to pick up even trace amounts. Bottom line is you should never eat anything containing poppy seeds in the week before a piss test.
Given that hospitals do not have an infinite pool of on-demand skilled replacement labor for patient care positions, "reduces lost work time from staff contracting the flu" has a fairly direct impact on patient care.
And it really doesn't matter that hygiene measures, considered in isolation, have similar effectiveness to vaccination because hygiene measures and vaccination aren't mutually exclusive options (in fact, I think you'll find that hospitals tend to mandate proper hygiene measures for patient care workers in addition to mandating flu vaccinations for those workers.)
Hospitals tend to do that, too, though enforcement is probably somewhat spotty, because its hardly as if every hospital employee can be given an exam at the start of every shift. That is no more a mutually exclusive option with flu vaccinations than proper hygiene procedures are.
Actually, they do care very much about that; one of the major reasons for mandatory flu vaccination of health care workers is to reduce the risk that those health care workers are unable to work effectively in the event of a major flu outbreak. (The big push began during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, and this was the main motivating factor.)
which is why I don't get flu shots. Oh, and that I rarely, and I mean rarely get the flu.
Be seeing you...
because a fetus doesn't involve employment?
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
Many scientific papers have concluded that vitamin D is efficient for reducing the risk of getting flu. But I bet that a non patentable natural compound is of little financial interest compared to Flu vaccine.
So I've got this tiger-repelling rock I'm looking to sell...
cat
That only works if there shot is low/no-cost, has a high chance of success, and there is a very high likelyhood of getting the flu.
I'm in my 30s, and gotten the flu once. I know many others who've never had a flu shot, and very rarely/never gotten the flu.
Some of these people got a flu shot once because they had to, and then got the flu every year thereafter when they didn't get the shot, and quite a few when they did.
Added that the flu shot can give a person flu like symptoms (but for a shorter period of time)...
Not of the presumptions needed for your analogy hold universally. Maybe in a general case, but there are some people for which getting a shot is worse than not.
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
That's an interesting study, but I wish it were a double blind study over multiple years and influenza strains. Too many potential confounding variables for me to make too much of a judgement, particularly on the sick leave.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
This is not a story about whether the flu shot works, so stop debating it, its about medical practitioners refusing to get flu shots on religious grounds.
First, these people should NOT have been in a medial profession if they were so religiously convicted to not allow getting medial services received themselves. Either they are being a religious hypocrite, or a medical hypocrite.
Second, I don't care what YOUR beliefs are about the flu shot, if you are in the medial field then the medical field WIDELY believes that the flu shot minimizes the risk of transferring flu to patients. Your sole goal as a medial practitioner is to NOT harm your patients.
At what point does religious beliefs cause harm to your patients, that is why they were fired. You can be damn sure that if some patient got sick and dies, and it was found one of these nurses was sick when treating the patient, the hospital would be sued for millions. A hospital is a private institution which can freely decide to hire and fire based solely on protecting their bottom line. Medical costs are already excessively high, a hospital being sued frequently because all their religious nurses are sick would certainly pass on the costs to their patients.
There are no human rights issues here, only irresponsible people entering a medical profession but refusing to do what is necessary to protect their patients. As a human I have a right to be protected from the ignorance of religious zealots.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Our band the Refusers has a song on this flu shot debate with that very title. The Refusers are currently ranked # 8 out of 1900 indie rock bands in Seattle on Reverbnation. Listen to Do You Want a Flu Shot for free at the link below to get a musical perspective on the flu shot. Rock this shot! http://www.reverbnation.com/therefusers/song/15464450-do-you-want-a-flu-shot?utm_campaign=opengraph&utm_content=song&utm_medium=link&utm_source=facebook
In Minnesota, a teenage girl who had been vaccinated a few months ago, just died from influenza this past weekend. So the vaccine is not certain protection, and there is a slight chance that it will result in illness. Additionally, it is highly likely that most nursing home residents have been vaccinated, yet almost all of them are now reporting Type A flu outbreaks.
So it is not "dangerous, asinine, stupidity" for nurses to refuse vaccination. It is a rational choice based on current information. The vaccines aren't working.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_D_and_influenza
http://blog.vitamindcouncil.org/2011/12/07/the-difference-between-a-prophet-and-a-madman/
Adequate iodine may help prevent infections, too:
http://www.jmbblog.com/2009/11/iodine-the-forgotten-weapon-against-influenza-viruses/
So may eating a lot more vegetables:
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/cold-flu-flu-and-nutrition-dr-fuhrman-responds-to-comments.html
Any chance you made ofther changes in your diet and/or lifestyle about the same time?
If about fifty percent of medical staff avoid flu shots, what does that mean?
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3365133&cid=42539793
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
That isn't true. The WHO makes their best guess which strains will be most prevalent for that year. Sometimes they do well. Sometimes they don't. They did pretty good this year, the strain hitting the Northeast US (H3N2) was predicted, it's just a really nasty one. http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/vaccine-selection.htm
This is a boring sig
The problem is that "just in case" is not a reasonable argument for taking about people's right to be left alone by an oppressive government.
I take it you missed the part about this being an employer policy, not a law enforced on the public at large.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
BTW, the hospital where I stay now (as a patient) does not require immunization of their staff.
You have the absolute right to refuse to be cared for by someone not immunized -- they're potentially a threat to you, personally.
This isn't academic to me: a friend is currently undergoing chemotherapy, and is severely immunocompromised in the meantime (not to mention bald as an egg, nauseated to the extent that she needs IVs to prevent dehydration, etc.) I could theoretically visit her, but given that flu is communicable before it's symptomatic I won't take the chance even though I've been vaccinated. The hospital she's in has an absolute "vaccinated or don't work here" rule, like the one in question; otherwise she'd be at a different hospital.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The mercury in thimerosal is not non-reactive, you blithering ignorant idiot. Stop it with the sodium chloride bullshit. Start here. "Thiomersal [alternate spelling] is very toxic by inhalation, ingestion, and in contact with skin (EC hazard symbol T+), with a danger of cumulative effects ... Cases have been reported of severe poisoning by accidental exposure or attempted suicide, with some fatalities ... Animal experiments suggest that thiomersal rapidly dissociates to release ethylmercury after injection; that the disposition patterns of mercury are similar to those after exposure to equivalent doses of ethylmercury chloride; and that the central nervous system and the kidneys are targets, with lack of motor coordination being a common sign."
Check out the MSDS here or here. "Highly Toxic (USA) Very Toxic (EU) ... Very toxic by inhalation, in contact with skin and if swallowed. Danger of cumulative effects ... Calif. Prop. 65 reproductive hazard. Target organ(s): Nerves. Kidneys."
Had you asserted that the exposure to an undoubted toxin via vaccination is so low as to make the risk slight, I would have treated your anonymous cowardly post as rational. As you didn't do that, but instead brought up completely erroneous parallels, and you are not seriously considering pros and cons, you make a pretty good punching bag.
My original post, moderated to virtual invisibility by idiots, still stands:
Various ultra orthodox Dutch Reformed branches won't inoculate their kids against polio in The Netherlands. I think they've been active in the US for quite some time too, although I don't know how many followers they have there.