Mandatory Flu Vaccines- How do you feel?

Nurses COVID

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Anyone else upset by the requirement to take flu vaccine or else... not even a mask option??? Only way out is a MD note stating "severe" allergy. Why is it we can't force our patients but our hospitals can force us.

I am pregnant and know I am high risk, but I took the vaccine in my last pregnancy and my son has an egg allergy. No proof linking, but no study not linking. I am so close to maternity leave and was going to wait until I delivered to be vaccinated. Do you know that they don't recommend the flu vaccine until a baby is 6 months but somehow it is safe for a near term "fetus"? Shouldn't we have the right to say no, just like out patients?

Specializes in NICU, Infection Control.
Every flu season it's the same thread.

Yes you do have the right to refuse the vaccine, just as your employer will have the right to terminate you or suspend you until after flu season.

You took the words right out of my mouth/keyboards! Deja vu all over again!!

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Specializes in Transitional Nursing.

No one is being forced to get vaccinated. They are being forced to be vaccinated if they want to keep their place of employment. So, there IS a choice. I support the mandate. I have 2 patients right now with Guillain–Barré syndrome. One of them caused from the flu vaccine. I still think the benefits outweigh the risk. I feel like most people have their panties in a bunch not because they don't want the shot, but because they don't want to have their choice taken away. The thing for me is that patients don't have a choice when they themselves can't get the flu shot for medical reasons and are exposed to the flu because their caretakers didn't get the flu vaccine.

"No day but today"

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Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.

My husband says I turn into Nurse Ratchett each of the last three years since I can't have a flu shot, and MAKE

him get one! I just tell him that he ain't seen nothin' yet!:eek:

Seriously, besides me, some of his students are either pregnant or moms of infants, and he'd feel absolutely horrible if one of hem caught it from him.

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The latest Cochrane Review found that influenza vaccination was completely ineffective at reducing transmission. I don't see why we are still discussing this.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0010949/

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Specializes in Critical Care.

I still can't understand why anyone would want to risk getting that sick and exposing their loved ones and patients to the flu when one shot can prevent it and you can get the vaccine for free and usually without waiting. The public stands in line sometimes for hours waiting for the chance to receive what the hospital begs us to have and gives us for free at our convenience.

Again the vaccine doesn't prevent the flu! It is a gamble whether the flu strains they place in the vaccine are even going to be effective at whatever flu strain does happen. They are guessing, this is not exact science! It is not like the measles vaccine where you know it will protect you from measles.

The flu vaccine is a guess and for that guess you are risking your health! The people who have gotten sick after the vaccine are not lying and the ones who are paralyzed are not making it up! It scares me how many nurses here are like sheeps to the slaughter, believing everything they are told!

What happened to critical thinking and evidenced based practice! Surely I can't believe I'm the only one to have met or cared for someone with guillian barre after a flu vaccine! There have even been deaths after vaccines to children and elderly but then they refuse to believe it came from the vaccine and it's not recorded! So take the vaccine at your own risk! Even OSHA knows the truth and has come out against mandating vaccines!

Don't forget the girls who have died yes died after getting the gardisal vaccine! Where is this critical thinking nurses are supposed to have?

If you want to learn more check out Mercola.com or Dr Blaylock who working in neurology has seen first hand the effects of the flu vaccine. If you still want to get your vaccine, go ahead but at least be informed of all the risks and know the benefit is still not proven, it is a guessing game!

But big pharma gets to make a lot of money off the hospitals mandating flu vaccines on all of us! Follow the money, they conveniently have immunity from any liability if people are harmed by their vaccines. If you are one of the unfurtunate ones stand in line and ask the govt board for compensation! It seems to me if these vaccines are so safe the vaccine producers should be willing and able to stand behind their product. Guess what they aren't and they don't!

Lastly I'm sick of all of you that say it's your choice if they mandate you quit or be fired. Where do you go when every place starts mandating it? No wonder nurses are so mistreated and there are so few unions in hospitals because nurses don't stand up for each other! This cold heartedness is pathetic!

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Specializes in Critical Care.
No one is being forced to get vaccinated. They are being forced to be vaccinated if they want to keep their place of employment. So, there IS a choice. I support the mandate. I have 2 patients right now with Guillain–Barré syndrome. One of them caused from the flu vaccine. I still think the benefits outweigh the risk. I feel like most people have their panties in a bunch not because they don't want the shot, but because they don't want to have their choice taken away. The thing for me is that patients don't have a choice when they themselves can't get the flu shot for medical reasons and are exposed to the flu because their caretakers didn't get the flu vaccine.

"No day but today"

Wow! Just Wow! You even admit you've cared for some poor person who got guillian barre from the flu vaccine and you still have the NERVE to say go ahead and mandate it, to hell with whoever the poor suckers are who end up paralyzed or dead! That is just disgusting! What a patient advocate! WOW!

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Specializes in STICU, MICU.
You took the words right out of my mouth/keyboards! Deja vu all over again!!

Then why waste your time reading any further or posting? Half the threads on the site are redundant to some extent. Required flu vaccines comes up each year because they are still an issue, therefore doesn't the topic have a place on this forum? Certainly, less informative are the infinite amount of threads seeking admission advice for school.

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I love my job so if my employer told me it was mandatory to keep my position, I would gladly get the shot. That said, I have researched the flu vaccination and am comfortable with it. If they came up with some random series of vaccinations they said I "had" to get, we might have to talk. At that point I might start weighing my options a little more seriously.

As a side note, I'm really glad my employer doesn't make vaccinations mandatory. I'm a pretty firm believer in personal choice.

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Again the vaccine doesn't prevent the flu! It is a gamble whether the flu strains they place in the vaccine are even going to be effective at whatever flu strain does happen. They are guessing, this is not exact science! It is not like the measles vaccine where you know it will protect you from measles. The flu vaccine is a guess and for that guess you are risking your health! The people who have gotten sick after the vaccine are not lying and the ones who are paralyzed are not making it up! It scares me how many nurses here are like sheeps to the slaughter, believing everything they are told!What happened to critical thinking and evidenced based practice! Surely I can't believe I'm the only one to have met or cared for someone with guillian barre after a flu vaccine! There have even been deaths after vaccines to children and elderly but then they refuse to believe it came from the vaccine and it's not recorded! So take the vaccine at your own risk! Even OSHA knows the truth and has come out against mandating vaccines! Don't forget the girls who have died yes died after getting the gardisal vaccine! Where is this critical thinking nurses are supposed to have?If you want to learn more check out Mercola.com or Dr Blaylock who working in neurology has seen first hand the effects of the flu vaccine. If you still want to get your vaccine, go ahead but at least be informed of all the risks and know the benefit is still not proven, it is a guessing game!But big pharma gets to make a lot of money off the hospitals mandating flu vaccines on all of us! Follow the money, they conveniently have immunity from any liability if people are harmed by their vaccines. If you are one of the unfurtunate ones stand in line and ask the govt board for compensation! It seems to me if these vaccines are so safe the vaccine producers should be willing and able to stand behind their product. Guess what they aren't and they don't!Lastly I'm sick of all of you that say it's your choice if they mandate you quit or be fired. Where do you go when every place starts mandating it? No wonder nurses are so mistreated and there are so few unions in hospitals because nurses don't stand up for each other! This cold heartedness is pathetic!

Critically evaluating evidence, huh? How much do you know about the vaccine adverse effects reporting process? Do you understand that it means negative events are reported within a certain time frame of the event but that there's no burden to prove the vaccine caused the negative event? So you have to compare post vaccine events to the likelihood of those events happening in the general population itself. Reviews of events following gardasil uphold the vaccine as safe (this would be the evidenced based practice part, a review of literature taken from reputable sources) with the biggest concern for kids fainting following the vaccine.

And as I mentioned earlier, you are more likely to get guillain barre from THE FLU ITSELF than from the vaccine. If you were seriously worried about GB you should be tripping over yourself to get a flu shot.

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I don't mind the vaccinations if there's no ridiculous "get it or fired" policy. With normal workplace opt out policies, fine. My workplace has CRAZY policies that are built around just bullying people to get them. The mask. The trip to an allergist to prove that you're allergic to what you say you are. (Because eating eggs and my throat itching and swelling isn't proof. It's not proof until an allergist gives me a skin test. To which I say, "And how quick would you fire me if I gave a flu vax to a PATIENT that had that history and a bad outcome happened?")

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What people seem to forget is that even though you get a flu vaccine, it IS NOT 100% that you will not get, or pass on the flu. They have to predict and pick the CORRECT strains! That is so frustrating to me that people think, and teach, that the flu virus is 100% effective. I do not get the flu shot, and my husband does not either. We lived with a couple, and they both got their flu shot, just as they do every year. They BOTH got the flu, and we did not. That is because they did not pick the right strain that year! So please, as nurses, do not educate your patients and the community that the flu shot is 100% effective, because that is false. I think that when this false information is given, this is when patients stop washing their hands, and get haphazard thinking they are "immune". I educate my patients of the risks, and that they try and predict what strains may be circulating that year, but it is in no way fool proof. And yes, for many, the benefits far outweigh the risks. Washing your hands is the most important thing to stop spreading of infection, and unfortunately most people don't. I have seen nurses that "get their flu shot every year", but do not regularly wash their hands, use hand sanitizer, or properly use contact precautions. (And yes, I give them a friendly reminder). I think the flu vaccine gives too many a false sense of security.

And in regards to it being mandatory, I do not think that is right. And many nurses, pharmacists, and physicians in Texas (yes physicians and pharmacists too), feel the same way. I should have the option of wearing a mask. I am in Texas, and they just passed a law about 2 weeks ago that the facility is required to mandate you in order to get funding. I don't even have an option unless I move out of the state, or find a facility that doesn't need funding. (yea right LOL!). This is a STATE law. I am sure other states will be following soon too. It is the point that I no longer have a personal choice. I have only got the flu shot once, and that year, got the flu anyways because the correct strain was not chosen. I have not gotten the flu since, because I wash my hands, and use droplet precautions. Shouldn't we be wearing masks with immuno-compromised patients period? Because it is not just the flu that can be deadly to them. The common cold could. And there is no vaccination against that.

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Specializes in Psych/AOD.
I just read at the nurses station that they want 90% of staff to be vaccinated for the best reimbursement dollars. So, I guess that is really what the flu shot is all about. Beyond that, I think economics drives it in most every sense from the money it generates for the pharma companies all the way to the money it generates for labor for giving it. I don't think it has anything to do with health.

At my local pharmacy there is a whiteboard that says " Flu shot goal = 100 this week." I know the pharmacy tech personally and ask her about the goal. She tells me that if the goal is reached there are bonuses for the pharmacy. Also, at my kids' pediatricians office they receive bonuses for getting a certain percentage of patients vaccinated with the whole laundry list of vaccines. I definitely feel that increased money is the motivating factor here.

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