Forcing vaccinations won’t fix the problem…it simply makes it worse.
The biggest hospital in Alaska has announced that all their nurses must have the flu vaccine before December 31 or they will be fired. This is troubling. Obviously the administration at Providence is concerned about the uptake rates of immunizations with their staff. I can understand that. But this is the most backwoods, strong-armed tactic I can think of to try to fix this problem. If you don’t do what we say is best for you then you will be fired…we don’t care about your concerns. Good luck with that.
If the hospital is concerned about immunization rates of their staff they then need to get on-board with the groundswell of public concern about the safety of these vaccines. Rates will not improve until people renew their confidence in the CDC and the safety of vaccines. The problem is much more complex than something that can be fixed by force. No one should have to chose between their employment and their very valid concerns for the own health. People are smart and they have the right to make their own choices when it comes to their personal health. We have the right to question treatment options. No one has the right to threaten us in order to force medical decisions upon us.
When will the medical establish and the government realize that in order to keep our communities safe and to maintain on overall high rate of vaccination they MUST make our vaccines safer? They must listen to the concerns of the public and focus their science on these concerns. There is no better way to fuel the fire of mistrust of the public than to threaten. For the sake of every single nurse who works for Providence I hope reason will prevail. Otherwise good people will lose their jobs or good people will gamble with their health…it’s a lose-lose for anyone who has even the slightest concern about the efficacy and safety of the flu vaccine.
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National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)
