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- pintomp3, on 10/11/2009, -7/+75A surgeon who didn't want to wash their hands would also lose their job, no?
- charles2511, on 10/11/2009, -4/+55We (hospital Employees) are required to have a host of vaccination prior to employment. Chicken pox vaccine, Measles, Mumps, Rubella Vaccine, Diptheria, pertussis, must be tested yearly for Tuberculosis, These vaccinations are a requirement of employment and noone is up in arms freaking out about their rights being violated over those.
There ARE execptions to this rule of you MUST get a vaccination such as allergy to eggs or previous history of Guilliane Barre Syndrome.
We (hospital Employees) should want to protect ourselves, our PATIENTS, and our families from anything that may cause harm. - thecosmicpope, on 10/11/2009, -9/+57As a health care worker, you are in contact with sick people with lowered immune systems. Surely it is not only good for yourself, but good for everybody you treat if you are vaccinated?
- nahsrocketeer75, on 10/11/2009, -2/+48Hospital workers have every right to refuse the shots. They have *no* right to endanger my health or the health of my family members by doing so. If they are so confident in their belief that the shots are bad for them, then find other employment.
- lanky22, on 10/11/2009, -8/+52If I worked in a hospital I'd do everything I could to make sure I didn't catch anything
- enantiodromia, on 10/11/2009, -0/+37In the military, you don't even have the option of not getting required shots, you just get them and like it.
- pintomp3, on 10/11/2009, -3/+40"saying no to a flu shot doesn't put anyone elses' health at risk" For health-care workers, it puts their patients at risk. No one is talking about forcing everyone to take the shot.
- mgnesium, on 10/11/2009, -4/+39Of course it does. If you work at a hospital and you're around flu patients all day, you have a much higher chance of catching the flu yourself. Then you go on to treat other people who may not have the flu, and you may give it to them.
- reticulate, on 10/11/2009, -2/+36More to the point, you don't want to be spreading what you do catch to patients with suppressed immune systems.
- OfoarHeffinsake, on 10/11/2009, -3/+33http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity
Remember, some people are medically not able to get certain vaccines due to allergies or other health issues, and they rely on herd immunity to keep from contracting those illnesses.
If you're working in health care, then yeah, you need to get vaccinated against many diseases, especially diseases that are highly communicable like Swine Flu. If you don't want to get vaccinated, then perhaps you ought to be working in a different field. - 47f0, on 10/11/2009, -4/+34I've seen a lot of brilliant comments on this flu...
"I know xyz who had it and they're fine" - I know a woman who lived through stage 4 breast cancer. Next anecdote, please.
"I HAD swine flu, and it was like, a sore throat for four hours" - lucky you. Hopefully all the people you spread it to were as lucky. Chances are, you were infected and contagious for up to 48 hours before you knew you were sick, and another 24 before the hammer really fell and you realized it wasn't just an allergy.
"Only a few people have died from it" - I'm sure that makes them feel better. We also haven't been through a flu season with this virus - yet. Only 1,200 people have died from Ebola - so it's probably stupid to treat it seriously, too.
"Alex Jones told me..." - Yeah. I see your point. You already have far, far worse problems than swine flu.
"I'm young, healthy and have a great immune system" - Ooooh - that's too bad. Because that's exactly what the 1918 flu exploited - young, healthy immune systems - and this virus is a 1st cousin to the 1918 virus.
"The vaccine is a government plot to kill us" - Of course, because throughout history, all governments have wanted is fewer tax-paying slaves.
"Ok, it's a corporate plot to kill us" - Pretty much. In board-rooms all across the planet, CEO's are hard at work to eliminate those pesky customers.
"But...but...but - the mercury" - Want something really scary? Chlorine. Agonizing death if you breath it. Or Sodium. Swallow a lump of that and it will literally burn it's way out of your stomach. Both of these deadly chemicals are in table salt. Take a chemistry class. Not all mercury is equal. Besides, if you really want to fix a chemical that kills thousands each year, look at dihydrogen monoxide - the government's been sneaking that stuff into our pipes for years.
"This virus was man made!" - yes, yes it was. Beginning a few thousand years ago when we started living around and domesticating animals. Species in close proximity get trans-species pathogens. Damn that evolution.
"You can't make me!!!" - Thank goodness - I was afraid Darwin's steady hand had been removed from our species. Apparently not. - mgnesium, on 10/11/2009, -7/+34Until quite recently, I worked for the TSA, the fine chaps who rifle through your baggage and path you down and all that good stuff when you come through the airport. We PERSONALLY came into PHYSICAL contact with hundreds of people or their belongs a day. While the contact is never as in-depth as you'll see in the health care field, the sheer volume of it is staggering. Even if you assume a sick worker can only infect 0.5% of the passengers he meets, you're looking at two or three a day.. who are going to have a return trip later in the week when they're incubating the disease, sitting on a crowded plane with 80 other people, breathing the same recycled air.
It seriously boggled my mind that so many people in our work force would refuse to get the free flu shots offered by the administration. The usual bunk was there; worries of autism, fears of catching the disease from the vaccine, anecdotal reports of it not being very effective in years past, and plain old just not caring. As public servants, I thought this was incredibly irresponsible of them. They are exposed to all sorts of people with lax hygiene practices in an incredibly public and often unsanitary workplace. It is a breeding ground for disease, and occasionally switching gloves and wiping down tables with alcohol is insufficient to properly protect not only the workers, but the passengers they contact. It's no small wonder that so many people were out sick so often, general laziness and 'blue flus' not withstanding.
I should also point out that these very same people flipped out over the swine flu thing and demanded vaccination. Oh, THIS one is scary because the news is always talking about how many people have died.. the regular flu never kills ANYONE. Idiots.
There's such a thing called herd immunity, where if enough members of a population are immune to a given disease, they begin to benefit non-immunized members as well. In a town of 1,000, if 900 citizens are 'immune' to a disease, and one of the remaining 100 catches it, there is a very slim chance that the disease is going to infect anyone else before it runs its course. There are only 99 other people he could possibly infect, and the chances of him coming into contact with them and having the virus successfully jump over is very slim. Now, if only 200 members of the population were immune, the remaining 799 would almost certainly catch it and spread it all over the place.
This is how we defeated smallpox. It's not completely applicable to influenza, which has a multitude of forms and requires different vaccines, but if a virus cannot find enough hosts to spread through or mutate fast enough to do so, it will eventually die out. Mass immunization is our best hope for combating disease, and it starts with those who are the largest vectors for transmission: health care workers and people in similarly high-contact positions.
You're not only risking your own health when you refuse a vaccine, but you're dragging the rest of us down. Stop it. - inactive, on 10/11/2009, -6/+29Put the tinfoil hat down, this isn't some grand conspiracy it's just sensible health care practice to protect the wellbeing of patients.
*sigh. - OfoarHeffinsake, on 10/11/2009, -1/+24The vaccine was created the same way the seasonal flu vaccine is created. Scientific evidence would suggest it is just as effective, since there have been vaccines created for new strains every year for decades now. People are under the mistake belief that the H1N1 vaccine is somehow created in a different way than any other flu vaccine. Remember the flu mutates every single year. Each year's flu shot is a new vaccine that cannot be given longterm testing since that year's flu will only be around for about a year.
Still, flu shots work, so somebody's doing something right.
Unless of course you think the seasonal flu vaccine has no effect, in which case there's no real point in discussing the matter. - enantiodromia, on 10/11/2009, -4/+21so, then it was successful?
- mgnesium, on 10/11/2009, -6/+23In other news, politicians have begun pushing for new laws to fire police officers who murder and firemen who commit arson.
- Cruelapollo, on 10/11/2009, -1/+18He's right, our tinfoil hats can't protect you from government mind-control if the mind-control agent is already in your bloodstream.
- mgnesium, on 10/11/2009, -2/+18A single 6oz can of tuna contains more mercury than your flu shot.
Not to mention, there are mercury-free vaccines available for about $3 more. Whoop de doo. - 3rdDay, on 10/11/2009, -4/+20Makes sense. Hospital workers are exposed to infectious materials everyday and are in regular contact with patients who are vulnerable to disease. As long as there's a exemption for those who have a valid reason not to get a vaccination (e.g. previous adverse reactions) then I see nothing wrong with this. I work in a hospital and if this was made mandatory I would go along with the policy.
- waydee, on 10/11/2009, -3/+18I'd digg you a thousand times if I could.
A disproved study which parts of the irresponsible media in the UK latched onto and printed resulted in the loss of herd immunity of measles after so many misinformed parents refused the MMR vaccination for their children.
The type of fear-mongering, misinformation and outright lies you see on the internet when it comes to vaccinations is very worrying. The conspiracy nutjobs love the Internet because of how quickly and widely they can spread their nonsense, it's got to the point where if there's discussion of any vaccine there is at least some idiot trying to persuade people not to take advantage of it. I'm all for free speech but when speech starts to genuinely hurt people I think there needs to be more done to combat it. - 47f0, on 10/11/2009, -1/+15Bull, FriendlySoviet - Thiomersal metabolizes to ethylmercury, which has shown zero evidence of bioaccumulation - again, take a chemistry class.
Besides, you'd get more mercury, of the nasty kind, by eating a few cans of tuna. And all your friends with tattoos? Guess what - their ink is loaded with thiomersal as a preservative. - mgnesium, on 10/11/2009, -1/+15Of ~45m vaccinated in the US, ~500 came down with Guillain-Barre, of which 25 died.
A negative immune response reaction to a single (SWINE FLU) vaccine more than 30 years ago.
~36,000 people die each year in the US from the /seasonal/ flu. - OfoarHeffinsake, on 10/11/2009, -4/+18Hey, arguments from authority! I love those!
And really, using Bertrand Russel to promote your nonsensical woo? That's awesome. Next use Charles Darwin to promote creationism. - Suricou, on 10/11/2009, -1/+13Invoking the name of mercury has the power to instantly initiate a scare, even without mentioning the dose. Sometimes I think if you threw an old thermometer in a lake, people would demand it be concreted over for containment.
- bigp3rm, on 10/11/2009, -14/+26I knew this ***** was going to happen.
- Suricou, on 10/11/2009, -1/+12Freedom of religion should not be seen as a licence to endanger other people, nor as an excuse for someone to ignore laws they disagree with.
- 47f0, on 10/11/2009, -0/+11If my mercury argument isn't convincing, it's because you got your degree in chemistry from the college of media hysteria. Please cite any study showing bio-accumulation of ethylmercury - the metabolite of thiomersal.
- davdev, on 10/11/2009, -0/+8Tivarish, no they are not. My wife and I both work in major medical facilities in Boston and while they are heavily encouraged, they are not mandatory. The only difference this year is you have to sign a waiver declining them, before you could just not get it.
In studies at our hospitals only about 40% of the Dr's and Nurses get the vaccines.
And we are not at lowly community centers, but major facilites that most people in the country have heard of.
That said, Rich, it is not the Government who is making these mandatory, it is the individual corporations. Which is how I assume you would want it to be. - Suricou, on 10/11/2009, -4/+12Who needs modern vaccines and antibiotics? Go chew some willow bark, hippie.
- PeterODactyl, on 10/11/2009, -5/+13No, I don't think he said that.
- max420, on 10/11/2009, -0/+7HOLY *****!
ETHYLMURCURY IS THE KIND USED IN VACCINES!
http://www.answers.com/topic/ethylmercury
Unlike methylmercury, ethylmercury has not been found to bioaccumulate.
Sorry for the caps. ::facepalms:: - inactive, on 10/11/2009, -2/+9That's a completely skewed way of thinking. The vaccine was given to so many people that would have died that didn't. This vaccine is made the same way as the seasonal which is very very safe.
- AnonBuffalo, on 10/11/2009, -2/+9First do no harm.
- dukeeeey, on 10/11/2009, -18/+25In the swine flu outbreak of 1976 the vaccine officially killed more people than the outbreak.
- tsotha, on 10/11/2009, -3/+10My dad has emphysema. He's pretty careful to avoid exposure to random people on the off chance they may have the flu, which could kill him. But he can't really avoid interacting with health care workers.
Like most infections the flu is contagious before you have symptoms, so anyone in the hospital who hasn't had the vaccine is a threat to his life. As far as I'm concerned this policy is absolutely correct. A single infected individual in a hospital or doctor's office could end up killing multiple patients. If you're a health care worker and you think this is an acceptable risk you need to find some other line of work. - ZirconiumZephyr, on 10/11/2009, -2/+9It's a measure for the best. I'm a medical student in Australia and we are required to get a selection of immunisations in order to enter any health facility however influenza is not one of the required vaccines. I believe this is because of how ineffective it really is compared to most others.
- KOSmurfy, on 10/11/2009, -2/+9About 25 people died from the vaccine, while one person died from the virus. Of course, what SilverStandard won't tell you is that the only reason only 1 person died from the flu was because only 3 cases were even reported. It never spread like everyone thought it would.
In reality, the 25 who died from the vaccine make up 0.00005 of 1 percent of the roughly 50 million people who got the vaccine. The flu kills about 1 in 1000. - 47f0, on 10/11/2009, -6/+12excuse me richmomz, but I'm pretty sure that President Obama doesn't set employment guidelines and policies. There's no federal mandate in this case. It's either individual health care facilities, or state health boards - not Obama's pay grade. But thanks for finding something else to blame on President Obama that he has nothing to do with.
- josh6780, on 10/11/2009, -4/+10Military = Governments guinea pigs
- Purplekat, on 10/11/2009, -8/+13I really don't understand this, I'm sorry. If you're not allergic to the vaccine, what the hell is the problem with taking it? I'm as fond of freedom as the next girl, but if I were a school bus driver, I wouldn't have the "freedom" not to keep my driving record from picking up points for reckless driving.
My fiance has this same boneheaded resistance about getting the flu vaccine. He's a teacher. Every year, I've made the 'and what happens the year you get the flu and have to be out for weeks?' argument. This year, I'm trying 'and what happens when you become a vector of transmission to your students who you love?'. At least my fiance has been receptive.
You'd think a nurse of all people would be as caring. Guess not. - celotil, on 10/11/2009, -3/+8What might be a better solution though to people continuously injecting themselves with a vaccine that has to be updated every year is for people to try bolstering their immune systems - see last paragraph before automatically arguing this point.
Part of the problem with all these viruses getting around lately is everyone running to the doctor to get an antiviral medicine every time they get a sniffle.
Am I missing something here? Have people forgotten that they have an antiviral, antibacterial system within themselves, they just need to let it get a little exercise?
Sure, if you're really getting ***** over by an infection, go see a doctor, but before that happens why not try eating more foods that strengthen your immune system, go play in the dirt a little and catch a more harmless ground bacteria to fight off, if you don't actually ***** or piss on your hands then don't wash them once in a while, and occasionally follow the three second rule - if dropped food is on the floor for less than three seconds before you pick it up, eat it!
I look around today at all the people who start popping pills, snorting nasal sprays, and sculling cold medicines as soon as they get the merest sniffle or cough and I wonder, Don't these people know that if they don't exercise their immune system that it will atrophy and become useless? Are these people trying to get AIDS without the bother of catching HIV?
No, I'm not anti-vaccine, I'm for balance - balancing taking drugs with natural bolstering of a person's own immune system - and yes I understand that a vaccine is an immune system bolster, giving the immune system a template for it to use to know when a certain virus has infected the body, but the flu is, as you said, a continuously mutating virus, and I really think many people would better off if they just naturally built up their immune system through non-drug means before they resorted to drugs and injections.
(I'm probably a little incoherent on this but I'll be honest, I've been drinking.) - DWatch, on 10/11/2009, -5/+10dukeeeey said:
"......but they go on selling them anyway." - Dr J Anthony Morris, former Chief Vaccine Control Officer and research virologist, US FDA"
Um... you are trying to quote a individual's opinion.... from 1975?? When Gerald Ford was still our president???? LOL! I'm sure that science and medicine have advanced a LITTLE bit in the 35 year since then. Thirty Five years is a LONG time when it comes to medical research.
Further on in the article is this statement:
"....Dr. Anthony Morris, formerly of HEW and then active as director of the Virus Bureau of the Food and Drug Administration, declared that there could be no authentic swine flu vaccine, because there had never teen (been) any cases of swine flu on which they could test it."
and further on:
"...Hardly had the swine flu campaign been completed than the reports of the casualties began to pour in. Within a few months, claims totalling $1.3 billion had been filed by victims who had suffered paralysis from the swine flu vaccine."
Well we know that people are dying from THIS outbreak, so that argument doesn't hold up.
Full story:
http://www.whale.to/vaccines/morris_h.html - nbluth, on 10/11/2009, -1/+6Way to represent us in an intelligent manner.
-A Republican - OfoarHeffinsake, on 10/11/2009, -4/+9You're arguing semantics. Yes, in 1976 a very small population of people had a bad reaction to the swine flu vaccine: roughly 500 people, and it was estimated that about one in a million had that bad reaction. Of those 500, 25 died. That is why the fund exists to compensate people who are hurt by vaccines.
Because, as I said, many vaccines are mandatory or highly encouraged by the government. PEOPLE WILL BE INJURED BY THESE VACCINES. It is impossible for them not to be. If you injected 100 million people with simple saline solution, some small percentage of them would get sick or die from it. Nothing is 100% safe.
But you're pretending like it's some big conspiracy to hurt you or that this vaccine is somehow less safe than other flu vaccines. Just because there was a swine flu vaccine in 1976 and there's one now doesn't mean this one is bad for you.
Of course I'm not going to convince you, so feel free to not get vaccinated. Hopefully you don't indirectly get anyone killed due to your paranoia. - Balanced, on 10/11/2009, -2/+7You obviously left the TSA because you were too intelligent for the job.
- kartman2001, on 10/11/2009, -1/+6But you can contract the flu and spread before you become symptomatic. So you could spread it before you felt sick and called in.
- theviceroy, on 10/11/2009, -1/+6West Nile is extremely serious (albiet mainly to elderly people), SARS was scary because no one knew what caused it and Bird Flu had a ***** 50% mortality rate so we took it very seriously even though it had little impact in the end -- our preventative bird culliings and other measures might have been what kept it at bay we don't know.
What exactly are you trying to say? That epidemiologists and public health officials are a bit worried because its ripe time for an pandemic so they tend to overreact whenever anything new pops up? If that's what you're saying you might be right but hey, better safe than sorry.
If you are insinuating that this illnesses are manufactured by "THEM" to scare us... you're a ***** nutjob!!! - max420, on 10/11/2009, -4/+9You realize that there are more than one kind of mercury.
Ethylmurcury, the kind used in Vaccines, is also in your own body. You get it from certain foods, and from just existing. the amount in a vaccine is well within safe trace amounts.
Methylmercury on the other hand, is the stuff we see in thermometers, and the stuff that causes mercury poisining.
Learn the science before making unfounded, and even dangerous claims. - RogueGenius, on 10/11/2009, -4/+8I agree completely, Frostman. So, I assume you are pro-choice as well.
- Frostek, on 10/11/2009, -1/+5Wow, you're a really caring individual, aren't you?
***** the patients who are ill! *I* have a good immune system!
I hope for our sakes, you're just a janitor. -
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