dcookRN

The flu vaccine is approved for pregnant and nursing women, and the package inserts for most varieties clearly states these populations have not been studied, yet approving it for them certainly implies safety. Patients deserve quality safety studies for any drug they are given, as to most people, it is assumed that drugs are proven safe or they would not be given. There is more than adequate evidence that pharmaceutical companies commonly produce drugs that end up killing and harming people, aggressively market them, after approval based on safety studies they perform themselves. In the case of vaccines they also aggressively lobby to get them mandated, and have absolutely zero liability should someone be harmed, which has happened plenty of times. There is risk associated with any drug, including vaccines. Many nurses choose to work at facilities that do not require flu vaccines when they are hired, but the policy is changed at some later point. When a nurse is given a drug, they ARE a patient.

Exactly! How can you know. When they say the flu shot is 62% effective, they are counting effective as including those who were vaccinated and got the flu anyways but did not require hospitalization. It is very poorly executed, presented and is quite misleading.

If it weren't for employees standing up for their rights, do you think "the man" as you put it would pay overtime, give adequate sick days, or good insurance benefits? As far as I can tell, nurses are the single most involved and needed employees at the hospital. Seems voicing our thoughts and standing up for our rights would be a good thing?

Deciding to be a nurse does not mean we decided to be vaccinated annually for the flu. In reality, the family member in the situation you would be concerned about would be at greater risk from a vaccinated employee or visitor that lacked basic infection control knowledge and/or PPE and training. Or maybe it would be the contaminated stethoscope, BP cuff, etc that resulted in the spread of disease. If going into nursing involves keeping our patients, families and ourselves healthy maybe we should mandate better food and lifestyle choices. After all, heart disease, obesity and related diseases kill far more people than the flu, and the same factors certainly contribute to a weakened immune system, overall poor health and increased risk of contracting an infectious disease. Vaccinated people catch and spread the flu regularly. It seems the most effective means of preventing the spread of disease deserve the resources.

The studies listed are far from adequate. They look at too few factors over too short a period of time on too few people. The unfortunate fact that fish and commercial foods are also contaminated is only evidence of a broader problem resulting in poor health outcomes. How can you compare food or driving a car to forced vaccines? And personally, I don't eat fish or commercial foods. I chose to work for a hospital that does not require flu vaccines for employees. Vaccines change, as new ingredients are added and others removed. Do you really believe the long-term effects of injecting vaccine ingredients on a yearly basis are known? We should have a choice to NOT be injected with aluminum, formaldehyde and god knows what else on an annual basis. No entity should force drugs of any kind on people. This is an essential aspect of freedom. If you choose to put your kids in public schools, and the school decides to start vaccinating 12 year olds for HPV without parental consent, do you also view that as a choice you are making? If you want an annual flu vaccine, you have the choice to get it. And everyone else should have a choice as well. If you limit your research to the CDC, you are placing unnecessary limits on information available.

I agree with many of your views, and respect that you voice them. I only wish more people would, especially other nurses. We are advocates for our patients, and standing up for our right to decide what drugs go into our bodies has positive consequences that extend beyond ourselves, into the communities most of us became nurses to help. Many argue that everyone should receive all vaccines, period. To me, this is a very flawed position. While there are certainly vaccines that have benefits that should be utilized, there are also many that do not seem to fit the target populations, or offer benefits that exceed the risks. For example, my wife and I adamantly declined to have either of our newborn sons vaccinated against hep b, which staff attempted to do within hours of them being born. This one size fits all, mass vaccination policy is inadequate. It fails to consider the risks associated, or even the benefits, ie will the hep b vaccine even still offer immunity when newborns grow up and actually become at risk to any real degree of contracting hep b? I doubt it. As a parent, a nurse, and a free American, I do not want someone else deciding what drugs myself or my kids should receive. Especially when mandated schedules are written directly or indirectly by the very same companies that make and profit from the vaccines they push to mandate, with absolutely zero liability for any adverse events. It is known that vaccines contain many ingredients that one can logically not want to introduce into their body. Is there really adequate data to say with confidence, that injecting small quantities of mercury, formaldehyde, aluminum, polysorbate 80, etc many times a year, from within hours of birth to death, does not result in neurological disorders or other morbidities? I have tried to find quality long-term studies that answer such questions without success. We need independent, long-term safety studies that closely look at the effects of any mandated drug. We also need regulatory agencies that are not staffed with people that are on the boards of the companies they regulate. Bottom line, we should not lump polio, diptheria, pertussis, etc with rotovirus, chicken pox and the flu. The risks are not the same, and therefore the risk benefit analyses of vaccination should be distinguished. If the drug companies have their way, we will all receive who knows how many mandated vaccines. Look at how much the number of mandated vaccines our children receive has increased over the last few decades. Is it wise to manipulate, stimulate the immune system that much? Does anyone really know the long term consequences, or are we all unwitting participants in a grand post-introduction drug trial? They have tried to mandate the HPV vaccine for school-aged children. Where is the line? Wherever it is, I will draw it for myself.

They don't stop at flu vaccines either of course. The one that bothered me the most I think was the attempt in Texas to mandate the HPV vaccine to school age kids as young as 12. In this particular case, Rick Perry(governor at the time) tried push the mandate the vaccine with his super pact coordinator (Toomey) that had received over a half million dollars from Merck for promoting Gardasil. All for a vaccine that has been shown to have very serious health risks, and only offers possible protection from very few strains of HPV, spread by sexual contact and the associated cancer risks.

The studies outlined in the vaccine package inserts and other published sources do seem to be quite lacking. To me it seems the real safety trial is done after the vaccines are released to the public, of course true with all drugs to differing degrees. Especially if the government, schools, places of employment etc want to mandate a drug, and as mentioned by others who posted the manufacturers are free of liability and make significant profits from these mandated drugs, the safety studies should be top notch (in an ideal world they always would be).

Its an interesting subject, that's for sure. And so many people believe that its a clear cut issue, ie vaccines are safe, period. And while much is implied in this area, I imagine its quite challenging to find any MD, scientist, or entity with any accountability that will guarantee anything, as the reality is there are no guarantees. An important aspect of good science is ever-expanding knowledge driven by eternal questions, seeking the truth, proving and reproving. There are fewer "facts" in medicine than many realize. We cannot know what a substance does over a long period of time when a long period of time has not even elapsed. Then, there is the question of what substance A does in the presence of substance B, or in the absence of proper mitochondrial function, and so on. We know that chemicals behave differently in the presence of other chemicals, but often they are studied individually, in small populations, over weeks. There have also been cases of safety studies being done without the presence of adjuvants in the trials, which were added to the products after approval. There are too many variables to consider to just accept short-term safety trials as proving safety, or justifying the implications. Not dropping dead within two weeks of receiving a drug leaves many questions to be answered. Its not easy to find excellent nurses, and our society needs excellent nurses in a serious way. It is unfortunate to lose nurses that would do so much good over their careers simply because they want to decline a substance, whatever their reasons for doing so. Talking about this seems to stir much emotion on both sides, driven by fear of one thing or another. In reality, often we do not fit neatly into one category or another. Questioning something should not lead to being categorized as anti anything.

I have received the majority of vaccinations available. Many were given to me as a child before I knew much about the subject. The number of vaccines given to children is astonishing, and it is many more than were given when I was growing up in the eighties. Many chronic illnesses, auto-immune disorders, food allergies etc are becoming exponentially more common. The reality is, we do not really know why this is happening. But we do know drugs, including vaccines, are often fast tracked and given to the public before the consequences are fully understood. Do we really need to vaccinate for every disease or disorder can come up with a vaccine for? Should vaccines for rotovirus (which causes diarrhea) or HPV be mandated and treated like vaccines for polio, measles or pertussis? I don't think so, but this has been and continues to be done. All the while, drug companies insist they are safe in any quantity, and any harm that results is handled privately in "vaccine court", and settlements usually require gag orders, and their is no liability for the drug companies who make more money for every vaccine that is mandated. No liability, guaranteed profits, seems like a great business model. Where do we draw the line? Hundreds of vaccines are being developed for everything from obesity to drug addiction, and the drug companies seem to want us to have all of the mandated and given in childhood. More people get sick and die because of obesity, poor diet etc, but little is done to address this. In my opinion, the flu does not warrant annual mandated vaccination. Think about it, being injected with a vaccine and all the aluminum, formaldehyde, polysorbate 80, and whatever else it contains every year, now based on the "required" schedule, from 6 months old on. For most people, the flu is a minor illness, and while unpleasant results in just a few days in bed. It has been so blown out of proportion over the last few years. When I consider the risk if the flu, and the risks/benefits of the vaccine, to me it is not worth getting and the right to use my own judgement to make this decision is extremely important to me. I do not want drug companies, the government or anyone else deciding what drugs I should take or give my kids. I have had other vaccines, which were claimed to bring life-long benefits with one dose. To me this is very different that getting injected with something year after year after year for the rest of my life.

That is horrible and unfair. What state? I ran into a similar problem when I was in nursing school, and it was challenging but eventually I found a solution. What happened to you is a good example of why we need to protect our right as autonomous individuals to refuse any drug that we do not want. How many excellent nurses will be prevented from helping people for this reason?

That is wonderful to hear. Me neither. Another thing I was thinking about, as I see the direction we seem to be moving in nationally with forced vaccination in schools, hospitals, and various contexts, is who is it that will be asked to do the injections into people who do not want them? Does it then become the role of the nurse, to be the one who physically violate the autonomy of another human being? This is very contradictory to what the values of nursing are supposed to be about.

It is a scary trend, and also crazy that more people do not want to stand up for these fundamental rights. We have to maintain the right to decide for ourselves what drugs we take. I do not want someone else thinking for me. I know plenty of nurses, doctors, and others that have made an informed decision not to get flu shots.

If my baby was there, I would hope they were not irradiating my child with x rays if not absolutely necessary. She could still get and pass the flu even if she had the vaccine. If she is washing her hands properly, and not coughing on people that is enough for me, and if she is sick she should stay home. I have two kids, and I hope that the nurses and techs that helped take care of them had the right to decide for themselves what drugs to receive. Grocery store clerks, teachers, all kinds of people that work in public could potentially spread the flu. Do you want to force them all to be vaccinated? Why not use education to encourage good decision making, not force.

There are much more effective ways to save lives than to force people to get injected with something they do not want. I fully support the right for all people to choose for themselves what goes into their body. Vaccination and other practices intended to improve health outcomes should be encouraged through education, not force. The flu itself is very rarely even a serious illness; for most it it a few days in bed. As caregivers, we have an obligation to educate our patients, and facilitate true informed consent when any drug is given. Why do you think pregnant women should be able to wear a mask instead of getting the vaccine ( i certainly agree)The CDC is even saying pregnant women should get it now, although in the package inserts I have seen it clearly states the safety and efficacy of the flu vaccine in pregnancy is unknown and has not even been studied, they cannot even say its safe for the fetus or nursing child. Where do we draw the line? For me, the line is drawn at deciding for myself what drugs to take. We do not need pharmaceutical companies or government agencies thinking for us.