Now that the Covid 19 vaccine is just around the corner... Will it be mandatory?

[NewRN'16]

Are we going to be able to refuse it, or will it be mandatory? 

I have had severe reactions to the influenza vaccine and eventually I declined it. 

Do we need to have a severe reaction in order for us to decline any further covid 19 vaccines? Or we could still opt out? 

What do you guys think? 

[toomuchbaloney]

28 minutes ago, Jack Peace said:

I will and always have encouraged patients and personal contacts that the most important thing they can do for their health is exercise daily, eat balanced nutritional diet, take meds as prescribed by md, maintain regular sleep cycle patterns. That's where preventative health should start. It is not my job to recommend or not recommend any vaccine to a patient. I would refer the patient to their PCP for those specific questions about which vaccines they should or shouldn't take. 

Interesting. My nursing practice always included patient education on vaccination practice based upon ACIP recommendations.  

Do you understand why vaccine injury compensation is structured the way that it is? Your previous remark leaves the impression that you are not comfortable with that relationship or arrangement. 

[Robmoo, ADN, BSN, RN]

17 hours ago, Jack Peace said:

The RNA technology is new in terms of vaccines for use in public health. These type of vaccines have never been used anywhere before, would you agree with that? 

The long term issues are completely unknown. But, again, we are supposed to sacrifice our basic rights for enhanced safety. Not happening.

The technology has been used to develop biological response modifiers in cancer treatment.  The applications are very similar.  The RNA treatment causes the body to produce proteins, cancer cell vs COVID proteins.  The body sees these as foreign and mounts and immune response hopefully destroying the cancer cells of forming antibodies to resist COVID infection.  The RNA degrades and is gone within days.  No, I haven't found an article regarding the safety record in cancer treatment.  If you find one please post a link.  I'd like to read it.

Read the literature and decide for yourself if the benefits for you outweigh the risks.  Don't reject it as a knee jerk reaction petulantly refuse because "they aren't the boss of me."

As for basic rights, the Supreme Court of the United States already ruled that the federal government can mandate vaccines.  I believe that they said something about promoting the general welfare.  

If your facility mandates getting the vaccine and don't won't get it, good luck in your job search.  Perhaps if you are unionized you will have some sort of recourse.

[Nurse SMS, MSN, RN]

It is arriving at my hospital in about a week. It is being made VERY clear that it is optional.

[MunoRN, RN]

On 11/30/2020 at 7:35 AM, DaveMHA-RN said:

My bet is all healthcare systems will make it mandatory. It's all about money.

The reason healthcare organizations are so hot and heavy on screening all patients for influenza and forcing all employees (with few exceptions) to get the influenza vaccine is because they get more money from the government.

Influenza is one of the measures  of the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program. 

VPB is a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) initiative that rewards hospitals with incentive payments for meeting certain measures.

My bet just like flu CMS will make covid vaccine a performance measure, and incentivize healthcare organizations to give it. And thus they will make it mandatory for all employees.

Hospital reimbursement isn't based on what percentage of their staff is vaccinated, it's only based on whether they submit that data along with other healthcare quality indicators to the database.  The percentage could be zero, so long as they submit their data then they don't lose any reimbursement.

[Jack Peace]

10 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

Interesting. My nursing practice always included patient education on vaccination practice based upon ACIP recommendations.  

Do you understand why vaccine injury compensation is structured the way that it is? Your previous remark leaves the impression that you are not comfortable with that relationship or arrangement. 

The vaccine injury compensation program pays out more every year than the previous year. And that's without allowing Autism cases at all. Look, the science of some vaccines is solid and most vaccines I have no problem with. But when the CDC/WHO/NIH said for years that they recommend only those 65 years and above receive the influenza vaccine, that has somehow turned into recommending it for all humans older than 6 months? Including during pregnancy? You can't point out any period of time in the U.S. that influenza hospitalizations and deaths was totally uncontrollable to the point that we all need to vaccinate against it. Oh yeah, one more thing, what is the vaccine that has paid out the most in compensation for injury in the U.S. since the late 1980s? Influenza by far, and it has only been available for half the time that many others have been. 

[CrucianLove, BSN, RN]

At some point I do believe they will make the vaccine mandatory, just as they have the flu vaccine. What is confusing me about many of these posts is that people are making it seem that because we are nurses, we are not allowed to  or should not question the vaccine.  We dedicate our lives to taking care of and education others, however we are still human beings. We are still individuals with our own minds and emotions. As nurses, we question doctors, orders and policies that many times lead to a better outcome for our patient. Are we not allowed to question the validity of this vaccine. I'm all for vaccines, always have been. The fact that people want more information about what is being put in their body doesn't mean were going against our profession. Everyone, nurse or not, has a right to make a decision on what is being put in their body. Whether you are for the vaccine or against the vaccine, just educate yourself. No one can say what decision is right for another. 

[toomuchbaloney]

55 minutes ago, Jack Peace said:

The vaccine injury compensation program pays out more every year than the previous year. And that's without allowing Autism cases at all. Look, the science of some vaccines is solid and most vaccines I have no problem with. But when the CDC/WHO/NIH said for years that they recommend only those 65 years and above receive the influenza vaccine, that has somehow turned into recommending it for all humans older than 6 months? Including during pregnancy? You can't point out any period of time in the U.S. that influenza hospitalizations and deaths was totally uncontrollable to the point that we all need to vaccinate against it. Oh yeah, one more thing, what is the vaccine that has paid out the most in compensation for injury in the U.S. since the late 1980s? Influenza by far, and it has only been available for half the time that many others have been. 

It's still not clear what your concern or issue is with the VICP. 

Are your comments regarding influenza vaccination reflecting a disdain for that particular vaccine? Do you think that influenza illness and death was uncontrolled in 1918?

[MunoRN, RN]

On 11/28/2020 at 11:26 AM, phill_rn said:

You're delusional. This isn't communist Russia and every American has a right to know and feel comfortable with what goes into their bodies-remember the Tuskegee syphilis study?

Washing hands isn't comparable to receiving a vaccine. One's invasive, the other's not,  but have at it ?

You're comparing vaccines to secretly infecting people with syphilis to observe how it kills people?

There is a fairly reasonable expectation that nurses take basic steps to avoid causing harm to their patients, which is why employers require that staff wash their hands, but you're correct that washing hands isn't really comparable to a Covid vaccine since failing to wash your hands poses less risk than high-risk patients contracting Covid from staff.

 

On 11/28/2020 at 6:54 PM, Kyrshamarks said:

As the old Feminist chant goes "MY BODY, MY CHOICE!"  I for one will NOT get the vaccine and the moment the Government mandates it is the moment for Armed Insurrection.  

We all have seen to many new meds and shots get recalled or stopped being used by the onset of unknown side effects and pt deaths and crippling side effects after several years. NO WAY WILL I DO THAT! 

Which vaccines are you referring to?

[MunoRN, RN]

On 11/28/2020 at 9:27 PM, Jack Peace said:

I just saw a headline from a media company that says, "Teeth falling out, new symptom of covid-19"....I mean, does anyone really believe this crap?? This will continue until we finally speak out about it.

I'm curious what you find so ridiculous about this.  

As the coverage of these cases point out, we can't say definitively that these were directly caused by Covid, but it is the most likely culprit.  

When teeth fall out with no apparent associated bleeding this is typically due to thromboembolism occlusion of the blood vessels perfusing the root of the tooth.  That Covid causes thromboembolism through manipulation of ACE-2 is well understood, and it one of the more prominent of it's severe symptoms.

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

8 hours ago, MunoRN said:

You're comparing vaccines to secretly infecting people with syphilis to observe how it kills people?

There is a fairly reasonable expectation that nurses take basic steps to avoid causing harm to their patients, which is why employers require that staff wash their hands, but you're correct that washing hands isn't really comparable to a Covid vaccine since failing to wash your hands poses less risk than high-risk patients contracting Covid from staff.

 

Which vaccines are you referring to?

I can see where someone could deduce parallels to the Tuskegee experiment. Some of the recipients were injected with syphilis (during the experiment), some already had it, some had latent. These men were told that would receive free healthcare from the government for participating. Of course, they weren't told what was being done. We know how that turned out. There was also a "wonderful, gifted" Dr in the German death camps, who did "harmless" experiments, all in the name of good research. While I don't go all the way there in my own personal comparison, I can see how and why some do. It's not a far reach when it's considered what every aspect of government has been accused of doing to our own people, at one time or another, and only express sorrow/regret when caught

[macawake, MSN]

1 hour ago, Hoosier_RN said:

I can see where someone could deduce parallels to the Tuskegee experiment. Some of the recipients were injected with syphilis (during the experiment), some already had it, some had latent. These men were told that would receive free healthcare from the government for participating. Of course, they weren't told what was being done. We know how that turned out. There was also a "wonderful, gifted" Dr in the German death camps, who did "harmless" experiments, all in the name of good research. While I don't go all the way there in my own personal comparison, I can see how and why some do. It's not a far reach when it's considered what every aspect of government has been accused of doing to our own people, at one time or another, and only express sorrow/regret when caught

I don’t think that they deliberately infected people in the Tuskegee experiment? I think the study participants were already sick and the people in charge of the study decided to do a prospective study of what happens when you don’t do a damm thing to try to treat people with a serious infection. Completely unethical and a horrible thing to do to human beings in my opinion.

But I think the good doctors went to Central America to deliberately infect people who weren’t already sick. They went from passively observing to actively infecting. Horrific.

---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiments

 

I genuinely don’t see how vaccines compare. Vaccines are given to try to decrease morbidity and mortality. I personally don’t think they should be mandated, but instead strongly encouraged through information and education about the benefits of vaccine and actively fighting the anti-vaxx disinformation that’s spreading like a fungus. But that’s just my ?0.02

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

23 minutes ago, macawake said:

I don’t think that they deliberately infected people in the Tuskegee experiment? I think the study participants were already sick and the people in charge of the study decided to do a prospective study of what happens when you don’t do a damm thing to try to treat people with a serious infection. Completely unethical and a horrible thing to do to human beings in my opinion.

But I think the good doctors went to Central America to deliberately infect people who weren’t already sick. They went from passively observing to actively infecting. Horrific.

---

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guatemala_syphilis_experiments

 

I genuinely don’t see how vaccines compare. Vaccines are given to try to decrease morbidity and mortality. I personally don’t think they should be mandated, but instead strongly encouraged through information and education about the benefits of vaccine and actively fighting the anti-vaxx disinformation that’s spreading like a fungus. But that’s just my ?0.02

I'm saying that I can see where people could see a mandate by the govt on a bad or ineffective medicine packaged as a vaccine as comparable to bad outcomes. Then use the Tuskegee experiment as their line of thought. I'm not saying it's my train of thought, but I can see where others could go in that direction. 

When in nursing school, I had been taught that some in the Tuskegee experiment had been infected. That was in the dark ages before Internet and more open research sources-Google, Wikipedia, etc. I just read on Wikipedia that my statement of them being deliberately infected was incorrect, so I stand educated on that.