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Nurses fight mandatory flu vaccinations
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| The Emergency Department entrance at Columbia Memorial Hospital. Robert Ragaini/Hudson-Catskill Newspapers |
By Andrew Amelinckx
As New York State gears up for another flu season, nurses in the Hudson Valley and beyond are gearing up for a rally to protect what they believe are their civil rights.
On Aug. 13, an emergency regulation by the NYS Health Department went into effect requiring that all health care workers in the state who have direct contact with patients be vaccinated for influenza annually or face possible termination.
The regulation requires that they also be vaccinated against Swine Flu when the vaccine has been green lighted, which has a number of nurses up in arms.
“It’s not right that they are forcing us to ingest a flu vaccine that hasn’t been properly tested,” said Kim Beck, a nurse involved in organizing the rally. “It’s a civil rights issue.”
Healthcare workers have concerns involving the vaccines that include the use of mercury as a preservative to its effectiveness.
The Health Workers March on Albany, as next Tuesday’s event has been named, will take place at the East Capitol Park on the state capitol building’s steps from 10 a.m. to noon.
They are hoping for as many as 500 nurses and others to attend.
The idea for the rally began with a few nurses at a mid-Hudson Valley hospital and has since grown, said Beck.
According to Beck, they have the backing of both the New York State Nurses Association, which represents 37,000 nurses across the state, and the New York Public Employees Federation, representing 9,000 nurses.
The NYSNA has come out against the new regulation due to its mandatory nature. The organization does encourage its members to get annual flu shots.
They have called the regulation a “scorched earth policy” and feel that the better approach would be to ensure that other “effective infection control policies and procedures” be followed, including the use of isolation rooms for infected patients and the use of respirators by healthcare workers.
Beck went one further and suggested that limiting visitors to hospitals might also work to stem the virus.
Another issue NYSNA, Beck and others have concerning the new regulation involves a lack of exemptions for those with religious beliefs or personal convictions that prevent them from getting vaccinated.
Claudia Hutton, the director of public relations for the state health department, said that the only exemption allowed is for those people who are allergic to one or more of the components of the vaccine.
“Eggs for instance,” she said,“that’s the bugaboo.”
According to Alan Phillips, an attorney from Chapel Hill, N. C., whose area of focus is vaccine rights, federal law might supersede state law in this issue since the Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act “requires qualifying employers to ‘reasonably accommodate’ their employees' religious beliefs and practices.”
Other issues include the possible side effects from vaccination.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “any side effects following vaccination with the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine would be rare,” but if they did occur would be “soreness, redness, or swelling at the point of injection, fainting...headache, muscle aches, fever, and nausea.”
In rare cases stated the CDC, life-threatening allergic reactions to vaccines can occur.
Both Beck and Phillips mentioned another possible scenario based on a number of cases in 1976 — the last time there was a Swine Flu outbreak before this past spring’s. The vaccine was blamed for 500 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, an acute peripheral neuropathy causing limb weakness and paralysis. It was also blamed for the death of 25 people from severe pulmonary complications.
Beck said she has a friend who suffered from the syndrome due to the vaccine and is affected to this day.
“That’s like saying a plane crashed in 1976 so I’m never flying again,” remarked Hutton.
She said that technology has advanced in the last 33 years.
The CDC stated it would be monitoring the new H1N1 vaccinations results closely.
As a result of the 1976 incident, 5,000 people sought benefits for vaccine injuries.
Phillips commented that if flu vaccines are a work requirement, adverse events from vaccines might fall under Worker's Compensation.
“I don’t think this was really thought through,” he said.
If there are any adverse events it wont be the five drug companies—Sanofi-Pasteur, CSL, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca's MedImmune unit, and Novartisin—in the final stages of production of the H1N1 vaccine for the US market.
The US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, signed a document in July granting immunity from prosecution to the five drug companies currently working on a H1N1 vaccine.
“There’s no liability,” said Beck.
On whether Columbia Memorial Hospital would be asking its healthcare workers to sign a waiver of liability, Jane Erlich, the hospital’s CEO, said that they hadn’t made that determination yet.
Hutton said that the enforcing of the mandate was up to each medical facility.
Erlich said that CMH would be complying with the law.
“We have no choice,” she said.
Beck, Phillips and others believe the vaccine is being fast-tracked at the possible expense of the public.
Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization’s flu chief, has stated that safety should not be compromised for economy’s sake in regard to flu vaccines, while Arthur Schafer, director of the University of Manitoba’s Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, has said that the public should be made aware of questions of a vaccine’s safety and effectiveness.
According to a report given to President Barack Obama in August by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, clinical testing can determine whether a vaccine produces a measurable immune response, but “it does not directly determine whether the vaccine elicits protective immunity against infection.”
That can only be determined, states the report, by “studying groups of vaccinated and control individuals over longer periods of time.”
Since clinical testing is initially only done on small groups of healthy individuals, stated the report, “rare adverse events and complications associated with pre-existing medical conditions are unlikely to be encountered.”
But to Hutton the “core issue” remains patient safety.
“Nothing else is as effective as vaccinating people...nothing,” said Hutton,
According to an article on Health.com almost 40,000 people in the US die from flu complications like pneumonia and heart failure.
The President’s Council’s worst-case scenario has up to 90,000 people dying from H1N1, mostly children and young adults.
This isn’t the state’s first mandated vaccine, Hutton pointed out, listing Measles and Rubella vaccines as having been previously mandated.
But for Beck the issue remains one of rights.
“If the state can mandate this,” she said, “what else can they mandate?”
***
To reach reporter Andrew Amelinckx call 518-828-1616, ext. 2267 or e-mail aamelinckx@registerstar.com
On Aug. 13, an emergency regulation by the NYS Health Department went into effect requiring that all health care workers in the state who have direct contact with patients be vaccinated for influenza annually or face possible termination.
The regulation requires that they also be vaccinated against Swine Flu when the vaccine has been green lighted, which has a number of nurses up in arms.
“It’s not right that they are forcing us to ingest a flu vaccine that hasn’t been properly tested,” said Kim Beck, a nurse involved in organizing the rally. “It’s a civil rights issue.”
Healthcare workers have concerns involving the vaccines that include the use of mercury as a preservative to its effectiveness.
The Health Workers March on Albany, as next Tuesday’s event has been named, will take place at the East Capitol Park on the state capitol building’s steps from 10 a.m. to noon.
They are hoping for as many as 500 nurses and others to attend.
The idea for the rally began with a few nurses at a mid-Hudson Valley hospital and has since grown, said Beck.
According to Beck, they have the backing of both the New York State Nurses Association, which represents 37,000 nurses across the state, and the New York Public Employees Federation, representing 9,000 nurses.
The NYSNA has come out against the new regulation due to its mandatory nature. The organization does encourage its members to get annual flu shots.
They have called the regulation a “scorched earth policy” and feel that the better approach would be to ensure that other “effective infection control policies and procedures” be followed, including the use of isolation rooms for infected patients and the use of respirators by healthcare workers.
Beck went one further and suggested that limiting visitors to hospitals might also work to stem the virus.
Another issue NYSNA, Beck and others have concerning the new regulation involves a lack of exemptions for those with religious beliefs or personal convictions that prevent them from getting vaccinated.
Claudia Hutton, the director of public relations for the state health department, said that the only exemption allowed is for those people who are allergic to one or more of the components of the vaccine.
“Eggs for instance,” she said,“that’s the bugaboo.”
According to Alan Phillips, an attorney from Chapel Hill, N. C., whose area of focus is vaccine rights, federal law might supersede state law in this issue since the Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act “requires qualifying employers to ‘reasonably accommodate’ their employees' religious beliefs and practices.”
Other issues include the possible side effects from vaccination.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “any side effects following vaccination with the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine would be rare,” but if they did occur would be “soreness, redness, or swelling at the point of injection, fainting...headache, muscle aches, fever, and nausea.”
In rare cases stated the CDC, life-threatening allergic reactions to vaccines can occur.
Both Beck and Phillips mentioned another possible scenario based on a number of cases in 1976 — the last time there was a Swine Flu outbreak before this past spring’s. The vaccine was blamed for 500 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, an acute peripheral neuropathy causing limb weakness and paralysis. It was also blamed for the death of 25 people from severe pulmonary complications.
Beck said she has a friend who suffered from the syndrome due to the vaccine and is affected to this day.
“That’s like saying a plane crashed in 1976 so I’m never flying again,” remarked Hutton.
She said that technology has advanced in the last 33 years.
The CDC stated it would be monitoring the new H1N1 vaccinations results closely.
As a result of the 1976 incident, 5,000 people sought benefits for vaccine injuries.
Phillips commented that if flu vaccines are a work requirement, adverse events from vaccines might fall under Worker's Compensation.
“I don’t think this was really thought through,” he said.
If there are any adverse events it wont be the five drug companies—Sanofi-Pasteur, CSL, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca's MedImmune unit, and Novartisin—in the final stages of production of the H1N1 vaccine for the US market.
The US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, signed a document in July granting immunity from prosecution to the five drug companies currently working on a H1N1 vaccine.
“There’s no liability,” said Beck.
On whether Columbia Memorial Hospital would be asking its healthcare workers to sign a waiver of liability, Jane Erlich, the hospital’s CEO, said that they hadn’t made that determination yet.
Hutton said that the enforcing of the mandate was up to each medical facility.
Erlich said that CMH would be complying with the law.
“We have no choice,” she said.
Beck, Phillips and others believe the vaccine is being fast-tracked at the possible expense of the public.
Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the World Health Organization’s flu chief, has stated that safety should not be compromised for economy’s sake in regard to flu vaccines, while Arthur Schafer, director of the University of Manitoba’s Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, has said that the public should be made aware of questions of a vaccine’s safety and effectiveness.
According to a report given to President Barack Obama in August by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, clinical testing can determine whether a vaccine produces a measurable immune response, but “it does not directly determine whether the vaccine elicits protective immunity against infection.”
That can only be determined, states the report, by “studying groups of vaccinated and control individuals over longer periods of time.”
Since clinical testing is initially only done on small groups of healthy individuals, stated the report, “rare adverse events and complications associated with pre-existing medical conditions are unlikely to be encountered.”
But to Hutton the “core issue” remains patient safety.
“Nothing else is as effective as vaccinating people...nothing,” said Hutton,
According to an article on Health.com almost 40,000 people in the US die from flu complications like pneumonia and heart failure.
The President’s Council’s worst-case scenario has up to 90,000 people dying from H1N1, mostly children and young adults.
This isn’t the state’s first mandated vaccine, Hutton pointed out, listing Measles and Rubella vaccines as having been previously mandated.
But for Beck the issue remains one of rights.
“If the state can mandate this,” she said, “what else can they mandate?”
***
To reach reporter Andrew Amelinckx call 518-828-1616, ext. 2267 or e-mail aamelinckx@registerstar.com
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