Did you just TRY to bully me?

[Conqueror+]

In general orientation after everyone has completed their health forms before lunch. After lunch the IC nurse is reviewing the forms and pipes up to the group (consisting of all departments not just nursing) "So Amanda, you haven't had the covid vaccine?" Gee Riley, is that a discussion for the whole group? "Well on Fridays all staff can go without masks and wear vaccinated tees that we gifted them with and there's a check mark sticker on their badge so everyone will know anyway." I respond oh, OK. No snark no sarcasm. Riley gets edgy and goes on a 5 minute rant that starts with don't you care about your patients you took an oath and ends with flu season is coming, how well do you think it will go for you if you get COVID, the flu and rsv at once? No response given because I felt that the entire exchange was unprofessional and chose to not participate.

1. I am not a crybaby or snowflake. I am  a vet and have been doing this a long time. I don't react out of feelings and this seemed overboard.

2. An employer has the right to set any rules they like. This includes the free I'm vaccinated tees and going maskless on Fridays. The check ✔ on the badges feels a little red A to me but still their choice.

3. Does the average nurse here think this tactic is OK? I understand wanting every nurse to choose vaccination but is trying to publicly embarrass them OK as well? 

I welcome all points of view but name calling and insults aren't welcomed or tolerated. Thanks guys.

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

18 hours ago, underpressure said:

I never said anything about Tucker Carlson ?

And it's the CDC itself that says the vaccine is "not approved by the FDA". Not Tucker, or me, or anyone else.

CDC: Authorized and Recommended Vaccines

Quote

Currently, three vaccines are authorized and recommended in the United States to prevent COVID-19:

1. Pfizer-BioNTech
2. Moderna
3. Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen

Many other countries desire to obtain these vaccines for their citizens since those vaccinated with these vaccines have 99.5% chance avoiding COVID death --- statistic quoted by Dr. Fauci today during various interviews.

[toomuchbaloney]

18 hours ago, underpressure said:

I never said anything about Tucker Carlson ?

And it's the CDC itself that says the vaccine is "not approved by the FDA". Not Tucker, or me, or anyone else.

What I do know is that you are misrepresenting the safety, efficacy and status of the vaccines that you have free access to.  You are sowing doubt about a necessary tool in the world's efforts to end this pandemic. 

What I don't know is why. 

[guest1178273]

46 minutes ago, toomuchbaloney said:

You are continuing to misrepresent the safety and efficacy of these vaccines and I'm going to continue calling you out for it because advocating hesitancy without sound scientific cause is worthy of public discussion and deserves to be questioned. 

You're incorrect. I'm not "representing" or "misrepresenting" anything. I'm stating that we don't know enough about the side effects of the vaccine to be bullying people who don't want to take it. We won't know for years to come what the effects may be. Hopefully there will be none, or very few, negative effects. I surely hope not. Until then, let people decide for themselves what they are comfortable doing without being lambasted. Everyone has that right.

Your attitude of "calling me out" is very self righteous and undeserved. Am I not entitled, just as much as you, to state my thoughts on the subject? Also, I am not "advocating vaccine hesitancy". I am simply stating that the vaccine has not been around long enough to have complete confidence in its safety. That's it. That is not even a statement that requires "scientific cause". The main point of my postings, which I will restate again here, is that people who choose not to get the vaccine, for whatever reason, do not deserve to be berated and impugned. That's it. 

[toomuchbaloney]

13 minutes ago, underpressure said:

You're incorrect. I'm not "representing" or "misrepresenting" anything. I'm stating that we don't know enough about the side effects of the vaccine to be bullying people who don't want to take it. We won't know for years to come what the effects may be. Hopefully there will be none, or very few, negative effects. I surely hope not. Until then, let people decide for themselves what they are comfortable doing without being lambasted. Everyone has that right.

Your attitude of "calling me out" is very self righteous and undeserved. Am I not entitled, just as much as you, to state my thoughts on the subject? Also, I am not "advocating vaccine hesitancy". I am simply stating that the vaccine has not been around long enough to have complete confidence in its safety. That's it. That is not even a statement that requires "scientific cause". The main point of my postings, which I will restate again here, is that people who choose not to get the vaccine, for whatever reason, do not deserve to be berated and impugned. That's it. 

You are parroting unfounded fears.  

People are choosing to go unvaccinated, in the midst of a deadly pandemic, based upon emotions and fear mongering. You are contributing to that fear mongering.   

Everyone deserves to be questioned when they are making emotionally based rather than science-based vaccination decisions which put others at risk during a pandemic.  

[guest1178273]

8 minutes ago, toomuchbaloney said:

You are parroting unfounded fears.  

People are choosing to go unvaccinated, in the midst of a deadly pandemic, based upon emotions and fear mongering. You are contributing to that fear mongering.   

Everyone deserves to be questioned when they are making emotionally based rather than science-based vaccination decisions which put others at risk during a pandemic.  

I'm not "parroting" anything. People are choosing to go unvaccinated because it's their right to do so. I'm not contributing to any fear mongering. I'm simply stating, AGAIN, that people who choose not to get the vaccine are exercising their right and should not be attacked. This is not an emotionally-based statement, as you say. I agree with you though, that science-based evidence is important in making decisions. And until we get that science-based evidence, people should have the right to choose whether or not to get vaccinated. 

Additionally, if the vaccine is as beneficial as you believe, then if you are vaccinated, it doesn't matter if others are or not.

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

50 minutes ago, underpressure said:

I

Additionally, if the vaccine is as beneficial as you believe, then if you are vaccinated, it doesn't matter if others are or not.

The point I have tried to make, admittedly not very well, is that most people in healthcare care as much about the health of others as they do about their individual selves. I do not dismiss the deaths of 600,000 fellow Americans as cavalierly as some do by declaring that people have the right to choose. You continue to stress about unknown side effects while completely ignoring the hundreds of thousands of lost souls, and the uncounted numbers of those with long COVID. Sure, many more have survived that originally projected. Also, many have brain, heart and lung damage. Have you seen the data about the alarming rise in type 2 DM? https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/06/08/how-covid-19-can-lead-to-diabetes/

Yeah, mea culpa about bringing up Tucker Carlson, but I cannot imagine where you are getting your information about "unapproved vaccine" and the number of side effects reported to VAERS. It sure sounds anti-vax to me. What peer-reviewed source are you getting this stuff from? 

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

2 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

You are continuing to misrepresent the safety and efficacy of these vaccines and I'm going to continue calling you out for it because advocating hesitancy without sound scientific cause is worthy of public discussion and deserves to be questioned. 

Looking at the VAERS data there appears to have been a lot of miscarriages or still borns as how did the infants die since they are not getting vaccinated!  Also the deaths and myocarditis of teens and young adults, as well as strokes, bleed strokes, low platelets and the thousands of deaths in our country alone. 

I imagine most of us have already worked thru the year with covid, been exposed and many probably already had it.  Others may have legitimate reason such as history of anaphylaxis and we were already told to avoid it.  I've had several such episodes in the past several years.  It is scary and unpredictable and some people die from it, I don't want to have to go thru another anaphylactic episode. 

This has devolved into a public shaming and yet another reason I'm so glad to be done and out of nursing!

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

10 hours ago, underpressure said:

Now you're just being a troll.

 

Typically that characterization would be reserved for, oh, let me think-brand spanking new posters who come on and immediately begin posting inflammatory posts, using non letter characters to evade profanity controls, and generally taking an adversarial tone with established members. Oh, and throwing the term "troll" about when confronted.

Anyone who refers to VAERS as support for an antivaccine position loses credibility immediately imo. VAERS states categorically that their data is not to be used to claim any kind of established fact about the dangers of a particular vaccine. Anyone can say anything on VAERS without any supporting data whatsoever. Why people put so much stock in it is beyond me.

 

[toomuchbaloney]

9 hours ago, brandy1017 said:

Looking at the VAERS data there appears to have been a lot of miscarriages or still borns as how did the infants die since they are not getting vaccinated!  Also the deaths and myocarditis of teens and young adults, as well as strokes, bleed strokes, low platelets and the thousands of deaths in our country alone. 

I imagine most of us have already worked thru the year with covid, been exposed and many probably already had it.  Others may have legitimate reason such as history of anaphylaxis and we were already told to avoid it.  I've had several such episodes in the past several years.  It is scary and unpredictable and some people die from it, I don't want to have to go thru another anaphylactic episode. 

This has devolved into a public shaming and yet another reason I'm so glad to be done and out of nursing!

You must not understand what VAERS represents if you use fear of those reports as reason to not vaccinate.  

No one questions people avoiding vaccination for legitimate reasons like hx of anaphylaxis. That's not what's offered here...it's fear mongering. 

Honestly, if you don't rely upon public health recommendations and science for your decision making during a pandemic, it's probably just as well you aren't practicing nursing anymore. Shame on nurses who abandon sound science for emotional decision making during a public health crisis. 

I wonder why a nurse would be surprised that other nurses would advocate for vaccination. I wonder why a nurse is anxious to tell people that they are afraid to get vaccinated because of vague suspicion and distrust. I wonder why nurses want to talk about why they are afraid to get vaccinated but don't want other nurses to discuss those fears. 

[Conqueror+, BSN, RN]

So some people actually assert that fear and misinformation are the only possible reasons someone would refuse the vaccine. Thats an interesting position. You are relegating that person to the categories of coward or idiot. That explains the attitude towards them.

[nursej22, MSN, RN]

11 minutes ago, Conqueror+ said:

So some people actually assert that fear and misinformation are the only possible reasons someone would refuse the vaccine. Thats an interesting position. You are relegating that person to the categories of coward or idiot. That explains the attitude towards them.

No one is asserting that fear and misinformation are the only reasons to refuse the vaccine. But when posters repeat misinformation/lies is should be called out. Saying you are concerned about VAERS reports, which are essentially anecdotal and unknown side effects showing up years from now, is fear-mongering. 

Ignoring the deaths and disabilities of others is cruel. 

 

[guest1178273]

3 hours ago, nursej22 said:

No one is asserting that fear and misinformation are the only reasons to refuse the vaccine. But when posters repeat misinformation/lies is should be called out. Saying you are concerned about VAERS reports, which are essentially anecdotal and unknown side effects showing up years from now, is fear-mongering. 

Ignoring the deaths and disabilities of others is cruel. 

 

NO ONE has "ignored the deaths and disabilities of others". No one said anything remotely implying that. Why does it inspire so much contempt in others that some people might be reluctant to take a vaccine that has unknown side effects? Are you saying VAERS is just 100% BS? That there is zero validity to people's reported side effects? The fact is that this vaccine is new. It's not like the other vaccines that have been around for decades and have been observed and proven to be, for the most part, safe. The covid vaccine is new. We DON'T know what the ramifications are. That's not fear mongering. That's a FACT. People should have every right to not be shamed into taking something that they know very little about.