Expert Calls for Health Workers to Get Flu Shots

In response to an article in the St. Petersburg Times, June 13, 2006
Expert calls for health workers to get flu shots

Mayo Clinic's Greg Poland, who is a member of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), is calling for laws requiring all health care workers to be forced to get flu vaccinations. His suggestion is the latest in a series of calls for forced vaccination of citizens.

It is well known that two-thirds of all health care workers do not get annual flu vaccinations just like two-thirds of Americans don't get flu vaccinations. A bout with the flu now and then is no big deal for most people. Despite the billion dollar ad campaign being waged by the pharmaceutical industry and government to strike fear into the hearts of all Americans about getting the flu, most of us know the flu vaccine is both useless and risky.

When the CDC tried to persuade health care workers who would be "first responders" in a bioterrorism attack to get smallpox vaccinations post-September 11, 2001, the health care workers of America "just said no" and the Administration's mass vaccination scheme fizzled. When public health types in Washington state tried to force hospital nurses to get flu vaccinations or be fired, the nurses union took them to court and won the right to refuse to get flu vaccinations without informed consent. Later, hospital officials tried to force unvaccinated nurses to wear masks and the nurses took them to court again and won again.

Over the long run, forced medical interventions that carry risks do not work, except in repressive political systems that allow elitist groups within society to force others to risk their lives for what the elitists have decided is the "greater good." There are many examples in history when government health officials and those they persuade to do their bidding have wielded power and taken away civil and human rights. During the past century, the Third Reich in Germany during World War II and Communist China both suspended the human right to informed consent to medical interventions forced on the people by "health" officials. It started with bans on smoking and forced TB treatment and proceeded to forced abortions and euthanasia.

The right to informed consent to medical interventions, including vaccination, is a human right. Protecting individual inviolability becomes even more important when government health officials refuse to acnowledge biodiversity and inhumane one-size-fits-all vaccine policies end up targeting the genetically vulnerable for sacrifice.