Two Canadian researchers are arguing against mandatory flu shots for health care workers, saying the vaccine isn t effective enough to merit such a mandate.
Drs. Michael Gardam and Camille Lemieux of the Infection Prevention and Control Unit at Toronto s University Health say a review of recent literature shows the flu shot is only around 60 percent effective in healthy adults.
Like others in our field, we get vaccinated against influenza each year, despite the vaccine shortcomings, and we strongly encourage other health care workers to do the same, Gardam and Lemieux wrote in Canadian Medical Association Journal.
However, we are uncomfortable taking the next step of compelling vaccination given the considerable limitations of the current vaccine.
Infection prevention? Really? Their statements are amongst the stupidest I ve ever heard, says ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross. Merely because a preventive method be it a vaccine or a risk-reducing behavioral change is not perfect, is no excuse for abandoning it, or worse, arguing against in the name of...what, exactly? Surely they are not trying to save money. Are they? And they are not concerned about the risk/benefit equation, I hope, given that the risk of flu vaccine is about the same as rainwater. No, I fear that these so-called control unit spokespeople are covering their behinds from having to confront hospital worker groups, including unions, who would likely protest being coerced into doing something they should very well know they should be doing on their own.
