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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.
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
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.
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.
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BMO
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.
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.
It turns out to be pretty hard to keep that secret.
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... --
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?
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.
Suck my cock, or I'll fire you. What, you don't like it? Back into the job market with you.
Am I saying there's a direct parallel here? No. Am I saying that what you said is ludicrous? Yes, yes I am.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
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.
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)
I live in this town and my mother in law works in this Hospital. These people were informed six months ago about the requirement and the results if they refused.
But has it been proven that herd immunity works for flu shots?
Influenza mutates fast. As other posters have noted, this year's flu shots are a guess about what last year's strain will evolve into, and to keep costs down, it's a matter of "well it could evolve into this, this or this, but only this one seems to be dangerous".
I've had flu shots for 8 years as a teacher, and I've gotten plenty of flu. Instead of calling us ignorant bible-thumpers (I'm humanist/agnostic-leaning-towards-athiest actually), how about ponying up the evidence?
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof - which usually means that I'd have to prove flu shots are ineffective. But when billions are spent per year on flu shots, and qualified professionals are fired because they express skepticism, it is suddenly the medical profession making extraordinary claims. "All this expense and disruption is necessary." Show me some evidence.
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.
Does anyone know what the Flying Spaghetti Monster's take on flu shots is?
While this might be true, you're ignoring a far more practical reason people go to work sick: Because they don't get paid otherwise. Many employees in the US these days don't get paid sick leave, so if they stay home sick, they don't get paid. For people who get paid a wage, this adds up very quickly, especially for anything worse than a cold. I'd lose 10 percent of my paycheck if I stayed home sick for one day.
The US is one of the few developed nations that doesn't require employers to provide paid sick days. Maybe it's time we started, as a matter of public health.
Being a smartass is a much better thing than being the alternative.
I bet that, once they heard about it, they sent you packing...
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