Mandatory Flu Shots
Health authorities and hospitals across the country are asking the public to get flu shots. However, in British Columbia, the Chief Medical Health Officer is doing a whole lot more than just asking.
His office has formulated the most colossal waste of time, effort, money and risk to people’s lives in BC history, with a policy that makes flu shots or face masks mandatory for health care workers in BC. If health care workers don’t get the shot, they face possible discipline ranging from being told to wear a mask at work, to being fired.
While on the surface, flu shots sound like a good idea, the reality is that it is much like placing a pebble on the beach in an attempt to hold back the ocean. For decades the public has been panicked into believing that a viral pandemic is about to sweep around the world, and for decades, it has turned out to be absolute nonsense. The reality is that there is simply no logic to making virus vaccinations (flu shots) mandatory. What good does it do to give a health care worker a flu shot, only to allow them to expose a patient to millions of other viruses and bacteria, each potentially every bit as fatal as the flu?
Take the common cold for example. It is much more prevalent than all of the flu viruses combined, and is extremely dangerous to babies, the elderly, and those with depressed immune systems. They can easily develop chest infections, such as bronchiolitis caused by the RSV virus, which can be fatal. So, why isn’t the BC Chief Medical Health Officer making cold shots mandatory? Many speculate that the reason has far more to do with supporting medical company profits, than it does about public safety.
The current BC government has a long history of enacting legislation without thinking first, and to date it has cost taxpayers billions of dollars because most of the legislation turned out to be illegal, and had to be repealed at a massive cost to taxpayers. The insanity of the current Chief Medical Health Officer’s move to make flu shots mandatory for health care workers in B.C., however, takes the government’s rashness and stupidity to whole new heights.
For instance, for many people flu shots are not that big of an issue. But, a registered psychiatric nurse in Powell River, B.C., Debbie Hodges, says that the directive puts her in a difficult position. She told CBC,
“The situation I’m in, I work in acute psychiatry and I can’t have the flu shot, it is not a choice of not wanting it. I can’t have it. I’m allergic. And they’re telling me I will have to have a face mask if I don’t have the shot, which to me is quite a dangerous thing, because I am working with people who are quite psychotic and my fear is you can’t have an open conversation with somebody if you are wearing a face mask. We’re worried that we might be putting ourselves at risk of being attacked, because people would be afraid of us wearing face masks.“
The Health Sciences Association, B.C. Nurses Union and Hospital Employees Union launched grievances over the policy, with the Health Sciences Association representing them during the arbitration process. However, on October 24, 2013, predictably arbitrator Robert Diebolt (selected and directed by the same government that made the shots mandatory), upheld the mandatory flu shot policy for health-care workers, saying the policy is “a valid exercise of the employer’s management rights.” Diebolt also ruled that the policy applies to anyone who enters a hospital, including visitors, volunteers, doctors, and outside contractors. Non-compliance of the policy could result in the removal of hospital privileges and the termination of contracts for contractors.
What do you think? Given that there are billions of contagious diseases existing in the world at this very moment, should flu shots (good for only a few strands of flu) be mandatory for health care workers and anyone who enters a hospital? In your opinion, do you think that the shots help patients, or vaccine manufacturers, the most?
