Posted by ckohtz on 10/15/09 08:10 AM [Newer: Letter to the Editor: Robbed Again] [Older: "Fixing" Unintended Consequences]

New York is forcing it's health care employees to get flu shots. If they don't, they're out the door.

Dr. Gus Birkhead, New York's deputy health commissioner, says the state has never gotten even 40 percent of its health care workers immunized against flu -- despite what he calls "year-in, year-out" campaigns to persuade them to get flu shots. So two years ago, officials began thinking about a different approach.

"I think it was really sitting around each year reviewing what had happened and all of our efforts, and then being disappointed by the end result," he says. "We began to come around to this idea that some kind of a requirement was going to be needed."

- N.Y. Mandates Flu Shots For Health Care Workers

The majority of health care workers in the United States don't get flu vaccinations. Maybe because they see first hand the risks and benefits associated with the shots and deem the risk not worth the benefit. Maybe they are unable to see any benefit at all. So it's disturbing when administrators and bureaucrats, people who don't see the day to day results, decide that it should be a requirement. It's especially disturbing when when it's the government making the decision.

To be fair, there really isn't a difference between a private employer forcing you to inject a new and untested vaccine into your system verses the government. The point is that nobody should be able to force you to taking a vaccine in order to continue employment. That's what freedom is, the right to choose for yourself. But the government's role in our lives was meant to be limited. And it was meant to protect our freedom, not take it away.

This flu is no more deadly then any other flu, but it gives administrators, bureaucrats and the CDC purpose. It lets them justify their existence and the money they spend, and it probably makes a small percentage of people very rich. Flu vaccines weren't much of a profit center a few years ago. A lot of companies made vaccines, but were thinking about getting rid of them. How convenient that something like the Swine Flu came along. You don't hear stories about struggling flu vaccine making pharmaceutical companies any more.

It's just very disturbing to hear Dr. Gus Birkhead talk about his program. I think his attitude is becoming more and more prevalent, and exemplifies the period of history we now live in. He's and his colleges are here to help. They have been trying to help for years and they are fed up. So from now on it doesn't matter if you want help or not, it will be forced upon you. This is socialism. Doing things for the "greater good" at the expense of the individual. Take your medicine, be it a vaccine or a bailout. The privileged few know best.

For more information on the flu vaccine and it's effectiveness, read "Does the Vaccine Matter?"

The history of flu vaccination suggests other reasons to doubt claims that it dramatically reduces mortality. In 2004, for example, vaccine production fell behind, causing a 40 percent drop in immunization rates. Yet mortality did not rise. In addition, vaccine "mismatches" occurred in 1968 and 1997: in both years, the vaccine that had been produced in the summer protected against one set of viruses, but come winter, a different set was circulating. In effect, nobody was vaccinated. Yet death rates from all causes, including flu and the various illnesses it can exacerbate, did not budge.

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