Forcing Flu Shots on Health Care Workers: Who is Next?

Forcing Flue Shots on Health Care Workers
By:  Barbara Loe Fisher

30 September 2010

Doctors at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia are ordering all employees to get a flu shot every year or be sent home for two weeks without pay to “think about it.” Anyone, who still refuses to get a flu shot after that, is fired.

60 percent of all U.S. health care professionals don’t want to get an annual flu shot, which matches the number of Americans, who choose not to get a flu shot, even in pandemic years. Surveys reveal that health care providers know that influenza vaccine can cause nasty, unexpected side effects for some people, like paralysis and convulsions.

Not Just Doctors & Nurses: Everyone

But that has not stopped medical organizations from launching a national crusade to force everyone employed in a “healthcare setting” to get a flu shot every year, whether they have direct contact with patients or not. That’s right. Not just doctors and nurses, but every single person who has anything to do with the health care facility, including students, volunteers, and contract workers. An exception could be made if the doctors in charge approve a “medical exemption” to vaccination, which, today, is about as hard to get as a job.

It is not a pretty sight to watch doctors acting more like thugs than healers. When doctors threaten people with financial ruin for refusing to shut up and salute smartly, there is something wrong.

Trust is replaced with fear and anger. People start asking questions. Questions like: Who will be threatened and punished next for refusing a flu shot?

The answer is YOU, me, and every American. We are next in line because when doctors trade in their white coats for military uniforms, going after their own is just the first step on the road to going after the rest of us. If this latest power grab is allowed to set precedent in America, the only question in the future will be: how many vaccines will we be forced to take or lose our jobs, our health insurance, our right to enter a hospital, or receive medical care, or get on a plane, or check into a hotel if we can’t prove we have gotten vaccinated?

Read the entire story, complete with video here.