Termination From Employer For Refusing EUV

[RaineyRN7]

I am an Oncology nurse working for a hospital for more than 13 years. I live in California and there is now a mandate in place that is requiring me to be vaccinated before Sept. 30th or I will be terminated from my job. Not only do I not feel comfortable to receive a EUV that no long term studies have been documented because it is too new and not FDA approved but I have also witnessed friends as well as patients having severe side effects after receiving vaccination.

I am unclear how an employer has the LEGAL RIGHT to ask me personal questions about my religious beliefs or medical information (vaccination status), where are my HIPAA Rights. Employer vaccine mandates are subject to religious accommodation under the Title VII of the Civil rights act. For personal reasons I will be submitting for religious exemption to hopefully prevent me from losing my job. 

I'm not sure what the outcome will be but I am planning to seek employment elsewhere in case I do lose my job and likely it won't be in healthcare. I don't know if this will be the end of my nursing career and if it is I feel extremely sad about that. 

What happened to the phrase " my body my choice " ? 

I will not be forced to do anything to my body that I do not choose.

 Through scripture we know that God values our bodies. Our bodies are said to be a temple of the Holy Spirit, and we are called to take care of and honor God's temple. God's words lead use to use our bodies and the gifts He has given us to achieve the will of God.

[toomuchbaloney]

Yep. Just like we dare to criticize the fellow who politicized the pandemic mitigation tools with lies and propaganda. 

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

US business and government has promoted vaccinations for highly communicable diseases since smallpox Supreme Court case won in 1905.

Very concerned that education in Public Health and infectious disease lacking in today's nursing education.

Renewal of Determination That A Public Health Emergency Exists

[heron, ASN, RN]

3 hours ago, Emergent said:

Every person has to figure out the risk-benefit ratio. Personally I got the vaccine. But I think it is an egregious violation of personal liberty and civil rights to mandate vaccines. It has turned into an authoritarian situation that is medical theocracy. And people dare to criticize the Middle East?

Once again, the rights of your fist end at the tip of my nose. Mandated vaccination happens when peoples’ failure to do so endangers public health in a major way. It’s no more totalitarian than the mandate to drive sober, not abuse children or maintain sanitary conditions in restaurant kitchens.

[jive turkey]

3 minutes ago, heron said:

1.Once again, the rights of your fist end at the tip of my nose. Mandated vaccination happens when people failure to do so endangers public health in a major way.

2. It’s no more totalitarian than the mandate to drive sober, not abuse children or maintain sanitary conditions in restaurant kitchens.

1.Actually:

What you described, bringing a fist within the tip of your nose, can get somebody booked for assault.  So that fist needs to be much further away from the tip of your nose

If you want to use that, how about "the rights of your needle end at the edge of my skin"

2.  laws against child abuse are nowhere near comparable to requiring someone be injected with a 9 month old vaccine. I see what you're trying to say but those aren't good examples.

[heron, ASN, RN]

1 hour ago, jive turkey said:

1.Actually:

What you described, bringing a fist within the tip of your nose, can get somebody booked for assault.  So that fist needs to be much further away from the tip of your nose

If you want to use that, how about "the rights of your needle end at the edge of my skin"

2.  laws against child abuse are nowhere near comparable to requiring someone be injected with a 9 month old vaccine. I see what you're trying to say but those aren't good examples.

Ah - the non-sequitur strikes again. As for the needle-skin variation … how’s about the right to grow your cooties ends at the entrance to my respiratory tract.

In any case, your inability to understand the connections doesn’t change the fact that all are examples of government control of behavior in the name of public health and safety.

[iNurs5, CNA]

On 8/25/2021 at 4:55 PM, jive turkey said:

1. This may be due to reading fast again.  I didn't equate diabetes and stroke to COVID. I made reference to society's response to this infectious disease compared to others.  

2. Troll accusations typically come around when people don't have good counterarguments and get frustrated.

3. JT isn't a troll.  JT is someone with a perspective different from others.  When people don't understand or agree, they tend to reply with hostility or unfounded accusations.  That's easier than being civil and asking for clarification, making a sincere effort to understand a different perspective, and agreeing to disagree.  SAD.

I don't see how you can criticize how much knowledge anyone has about medicine, nursing or scientfic processes when you couldn't identify  diseases in plain text.  

Heron I'm sure you're a wonderful person.  I'm going to find it uninteresting to debate anything further with you because you strayed away from the topic at hand tried to make it personal.  Listening to people do that gets boring man, on the real.

JT, 

In short, you should study to be a lawyer. 

[iNurs5, CNA]

I understand people are fallible.They're fixated on ( might be certain) things. Are they really making sure everything is tested before they put anything in their body?  Do they even know how to use FDA website?

Many medications are majorly not from the US, too. Why aren't worried about these? What if the suppliers cut them off?

...it will be "my body, my choice." ONLY if harmless to the others.

 

[heron, ASN, RN]

1 hour ago, Honyebee said:

JT, 

In short, you should study to be a lawyer. 

 But how could I have missed this one?! Best flounce I’ve seen in a while. He promised to not engage with me again, though. He lied … how very lawyerly!

Meanwhile, back at the topic … needless to say, I don’t agree that anyone’s rights include deliberate harm to another. As for employer mandates, unless you have a contract - individual or union - they can fire you for any or no cause except membership in a protected class.

At-will employment, so beloved of libertarians and conservatives everywhere, plus the fact that we have had public health mandates, upheld by the Supreme Court, for over 100 years, makes the whole discussion some what surreal. I mean, so what else is new? SMH What’s so different about this disease vs all the others for which we mandate vaccination?

ETA: interesting that my post got addressed but not Makawake’s much better post saying much the same thing. Does our master debater think he’s punching down? 

[klone, MSN, RN]

Gosh, it's like nobody has studied US history. Vaccine mandates have been around FOREVER (okay, not forever, but over 150 years). Jacobson v. Massachusetts, anyone?

Finally, here's a really interesting white paper on the history of vaccine mandates in the US:

https://www.CDC.gov/vaccines/imz-managers/guides-pubs/downloads/vacc_mandates_chptr13.pdf

[ORNurseDewd, ADN]

While I appreciate you answering my questions honestly, you obviously did not read my missive in its entirety - particularly some of the reasons I provided for  vaccine hesitancy. Sorry, but being a self-righteous, militant vaxxer isn't going to assuage a single person who has legitimate concerns about either the vaccine itself, or the extra-Constitutional mandates which have been imposed upon the populace throughout this pandemic. Besides, how did you become the arbiter deciding what is and what isn't a "no good reason" to get the vax?

As for the various patient types I included in my post, you are correct: I can't catch obesity from the cheeseburger-eating passenger sitting next to me on the subway - but I can incur a debilitating back injury while positioning that passenger on a fx table after he/she breaks his/her hip. Likewise, I can get any of a number of diseases from that non-condom wearing patient, after being stabbed in the arm with a #11 blade by a careless surgeon during a trauma (I would also suggest that you don't know what real fear is until you spend 2 weeks post-exposure, awaiting that patient's serology results to come back). Lastly, I would gently suggest you re-read what I said about those who developed oropharyngeal herpes by simply breathing smoke created by the laser used to remove them.

As nurses, we walk into battle, knowing that we will be exposed communicable diseases every day - and we also know that Covid is simply one of  many of them. Thus, while I'm not suggesting we be cavalier about the risks associated with any of them, I would posit that, if you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. It's as simple as that. Oh, and by the way, fully half of  the current Covid admissions to my hospital, have been fully vaccinated...

 

[ORNurseDewd, ADN]

13 hours ago, subee said:

There are so many things illogical about this post that I'm gonna wait for others to chime in.  But I also worked in OR's for 40 years and I understand masks.  Masks in the OR are worn for only 1 reason, to protect the patient.  But masks in a pandemic are so worn for more than to protect someone being the recipient of your germs  you spread when you cough or sneeze.  Obviously they are a barrier to droplet spread.  But in a pandemic , they can serve a different purpose in that they protect the wearer (again, partially) by decreasing the viral load floating around in the air we breathe.  Using masks for that reason (preventing of pandemic spread) only works if everyone is masked.    One more point.  People with medical passes for not being candidates would not be exempt from participating in things requiring a mask mandate.  The main reason for most of us to vaccinate is to protect those who can't.  when everyone vaccinated, the viral load we are exposed to is reduced to the point that the few people who aren't vaxxed don't have to live in a bubble.  And we have something called public health law that is already constitutional.  That's why people with resistant TB are forced to be separated from others until after treatment.  That's why we can't weaponize HIV or other communicable disease without legal consequences. 

 

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

5 hours ago, Honyebee said:

JT, 

In short, you should study to be a lawyer. 

With his nursing background, he could make a terrific ambulance chaser - in so many ways:)