Mandatory H1N1 Vaccine For NY Health Workers Suspended 292
lunatick writes "The controversial mandatory swine flu vaccine for health care workers in NY has been suspended. While the reason for the suspension was stated as a shortage of the vaccine, a connection was found showing state Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines, M.D. and/or his wife may directly profit from the sale of the vaccine. Within hours of that connection being questioned on a radio show and the podcast being distributed, the announcement was made suspending the order. The health care community of NYS is petitioning the State Attorney general to investigate the connection."
Re:Unions are outraged! (Score:3, Interesting)
The NY State Unions are Outraged that their employer wants to keep its workforce healthy
I am usually as anti-union as they come but this is case where I see them actually doing some good. We don't generally have the abusive employer-employee relationships we had in the past, but your employer insisting you inject something into your body certainly counts!
Its one of the most perverse violations of rights in recent times! We are supposed to be secure in the right of our person.
Now that this has been declared a federal emergency by the big O, I fully expect other groups of people to be "required" to be vaccinated. Well I say they can vaccinate my dead body because that's the only way I let them do it! You can be darn sure I will try and take as many of whatever agents attempt to force such on me down with me too. Anyone who tries to forcefully inject a bunch of heavy metal Mg in you deserves to be injected with some Pb at high velocity in my book!
antivaxxers on slashdot (Score:3, Interesting)
We've been seeing tons and tons of articles like this recently on slashdot. There's a consistent anti-vaccine slant on all of them. I'm guessing that there's some small group of antivaccine crazies who are active on the firehose, and they consistently vote up each other's stories.
Re:Unions are outraged! (Score:1, Interesting)
There are multitudes of ways to protect a patient from exposure, from face masks to reverse isolation air exchange rooms to simply staying home while ill.
To demand vaccination out all the different means to reduce infection is an arbitrary line in the sand, most spoken by those who neither give patient care nor will bear any cost should any problems arise.
TB testing is different with respect to the laws associated with it (you can be quarantined in most states for refusing INH treatment) and is advocated as a means of tracing exposure and workman's comp. claims.
To put things in perspective, the Hepatitis B vaccine is not mandatory, even though at one time Hep. B represented one of the highest occupational risks of those who performed direct patient care.
In short, know what the fuck you are talking about instead of parroting useless asides of what someone else told you to think.
Re:BUSTED! (Score:4, Interesting)
In Britain, apparently a large number of doctors and nurses are refusing to take the H1N1 vaccine. I don't understand the arguments for and against, but if the people who know about these things don't want it, why should I take it?
Re:The hypocrisy is amazing... (Score:2, Interesting)
Really? Getting an abortion doesn't endanger anyone else? You can't imagine anyone else who might be harmed by an abortion?
Think carefully now.
science shows limitations to current flu vaccines (Score:3, Interesting)
Respected researchers' report from Canada say the odds for getting H1N1 this year were doubled for recipients of last year's flu shot.
Re:Mandating vaccines... (Score:5, Interesting)
Most reports are that swine flu has been mild compared to the typical in most individuals. This includes reports that some exposed have never developed any symptom. The reported numbers for swine flu rely on the presumption of swine flu rather than the regular seasonal flu, not actual tests. That is, died so must have been swine flu.
What evidence there is suggests that children and the elderly should have priority for vaccination (greater potential benefit for the same risk). Healthy adults should be at the end of the list.
Meanwhile, none of the reports of flu death statistics are based on an actual count. They are all extrapolations and estimates based on 'facts' that are supported mostly by the statistics they support.
A big hint of that was a report that the 5000 worldwide deaths is an estimate because various authorities have stopped counting. Hrmm, only 5000 and it's too many to count or only 5000 so it's not significant enough to count?
And of course, the last time the swine flu was going to kill us all, the vaccine turned out to have serious side effects (for reasons never determined) and the swine flue never went beyond a single military base.
Nevertheless, I was mostly pointing out that being made by the same process doesn't mean the risk is exactly the same and that in any event, double the vaccinations means double the risks. I didn't actually comment on the risk/benefit analysis at all.
Re:control over one's body vs. public health (Score:3, Interesting)
This is, just as the top poster says, anti-vaccine hysteria from people who think their gut beats experts, research, fact. We're the only developed country that has this problem...the rest of the world, hell, even the Catholic church has accepted Evolution, yet nutjobs came out of the woodwork and demanded it's false and constantly challenge its teaching. Then we had the anti-global-warming nutjobs. Now it's anti-vaccine nutjobs.
What's next? Square Earth? We're the pivoting point of the universe? Why is it that it feels like only America has all the idiots who deny the obvious, proven, fact?
Clearly you have never read about issues in other countries. There are skeptics of global warming worldwide, there are critics of the teaching of evolution worldwide (or other widely accepted facts). There are plenty of anti-vaccine groups worldwide.
Additionally there are an ample supply of elitist snobs like you whom feel anyone who disagrees with them must simply be an "idiot" who "denies obvious, proven fact" and attempts to establish this point with strawman arguments.
Re:BUSTED! (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, flu tends to do that.
And not even as often as claimed, either. Usually the fear-inducing headline is "SWINE FLU KILLS A CHILD" and then you find out they were immunocompromised and/or actually died of pneumonia or some other complication. Yes, the secondary illness was likely caused by the body already being weakened by the H1N1, but it could have just as easily happened with regular flu, bronchitis, any number of things that affect the respiratory system. And yes, it is tragic when anyone dies this way, but it doesn't justify all the panic, or yet another controversial vaccine.