Fighting mandate regarding flu vaccines

Nurses COVID

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I am a last year FNP student....and my university just sent an email mandating both the Influenza and H1N1 vaccines. The state attorney--of the Dept of Public Health does not mandate this for healthcare workers--so it seems a State Univ would follow suit. Any suggestions on fighting this mandate?

you make excellent points.

working in a non-clinical area was not offered to anyone at my hospital. they actually have run out of the vaccine for the nursing staff, anyways, and don't know when they will get more. i actually offered to work discharge, telephone triage, monitor tech, medical records when i was still working and was told by my director there was "no reason" why i shouldn't care for a patient with the swine flu while pregnant. i was actually wearing the mask before it was mandated.

i understand that there has been extra clinical trial done on pregnant woman for this vaccine, one of them was done at the hospital in NC that i used to work for.... but who is to say how it will affect the babies if they have not been born yet... it may take years.... i am not willing to take the vaccine for this reason, after asking my OB and multiple other physicians their opinions. would you be willing, if you were pregnant, to take this vaccine?

A good question.

However, in my case I would get vaccinated, but not because of work....if I was going to be working clinically over the next few months and not be vaccinated, I wouldn't work. I don't know how I would work that out, I'm guessing it would be something I would have to figure out (ie work with my supervisors for another assignment, use leave, take a leave-of-absence, or find another job). But I couldn't in good conscience work clinically (both for my and my patients protection) if there was a vaccine available and I didn't choose to take it (for valid reasons, but still a choice).

Personally though, I would get the vaccine if I was pregnant....but that is a personal decision. First, the CDC states that the risks for hospitalization and death have been higher for pregnant women who get the 2009 H1N1 virus as compared to the rest of the population who got the 2009 H1N1 virus.

Additionally, I have asthma and while we've finally gotten it to the point that it's usually very, well controlled, it can get very ugly, very fast when I get a respiratory infection. I don't get colds, I get bronchitis....like within a day and if I don't get on antibiotics and prednisone within that day it's already pneumonia within another day or so...then I'm in for a couple months of oral steroids. (Thankfully this rarely happens, I'm a fanatic with hand hygiene, get my flu shot early in the season each year, avoid sick friends, keep well rested, eat well ,etc....I'm very careful....but when I do get sick, I almost always get very sick). So, for me, the risks of getting the H1n1 flu while pregnant would far outweigh the possibility of risks from getting the shot.

So, I agree that getting the vaccine is a personal decision, and I don't know of anyone who's looking to take that decision away. The place where I, and other's I've seen, have have concerns is when it comes to being unvaccinated and working clinically (obviously, if they ran out of the vaccine, they ran out....you can only do what you can do...but once that protection is available....well, you see my point.)

would you be willing, if you were pregnant, to take this vaccine?

I would get the vaccine if I were pregnant, for a few reasons. First, it is manufactured in the same way as the seasonal vaccine, only using a different strain of virus. The seasonal flu vaccine has been used for some time in pregnant women. Second, pregnant women appear to have a higher risk of being hospitalized if they have H1N1. And third, and maybe most important if I were pregnant, it is believed that the mother receiving the vaccine protects the infant after birth. I would be pretty nervous about a baby being born right during the time H1N1 is going strong.

Here is some info from the CDC:

When a pregnant woman gets a flu shot, it can protect both her and her baby. Research has found that pregnant women who had a flu shot get sick less often with the flu than do pregnant women who did not get a flu shot. Babies born to mothers who had a flu shot in pregnancy also get sick with flu less often than do babies whose mothers did not get a flu shot.

Is the 2009 H1N1 flu shot safe for pregnant women?

The seasonal flu shot has been given to millions of pregnant women over many years. Flu shots have not been shown to cause harm to pregnant women or their babies. The 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine is being made in the same way and at the same places where the seasonal flu vaccine is made.

I have been vaccinated already, and I also vaccinated my 2 children (ages 13 and 16). I am far more terrifed of one of them ending up being one of the kids with no known health risks who is dead because of H1N1.

Specializes in cardiac ICU.

I think it would be helpful for some of the nurses who are objecting to vaccination to go back and review the basic principles of epidemiology.

Ok, seriously? please...just stop #@##@'in and take it LOL...Are you the same pple that don't want your kids to take the HPV because "my kids not having sex so why should she need it?" LOL-if you only knew what your kid was really doing these days.

Bottom line, if you're not willing to take adequate precautions against a pandemic, then don't go crying that it's the governments fault when true chaos arises.

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