Health Impact News Editor Comments: We have reported many stories this past flu season of healthcare workers losing their jobs for refusing the flu vaccine. Here are a few:
TriHealth fires 150 employees in Cincinnati for not getting flu shots
Mandated Flu Shots for Health Workers Wrong Says Physicians and Surgeons Group
Brave Nurses Lose Jobs to Stand on Principle and Refuse Forced Vaccinations
Another Healthcare Worker Tells Her Story of Losing Her Job of 17 Years for Refusing FluVaccination
Attorney Alan Phillips has represented many of these healthcare workers across the country, and he brings us this updated story about how not only healthcare workers are being targeted for vaccination, but the entire U.S. population. Vaccine effectiveness and safety are not even part of the discussion anymore as personal rights to refuse what is injected into our bodies are quickly being eroded. Most of the pressure being put on hospitals to vaccinate all their employees is a result of the new Obamacare laws, and are related to financial compensation through Medicare and Medicaid. We need to be aware of the true issues here, and fight for our constitutional rights at the state level.
Will Flu Vaccines Be Required For All U.S. Health Employees by 2020?
By Alan Phillips, J.D.
GreenMedInfo.com
This past fall, I worked with about 150 healthcare workers in 26 states who were required to get a flu shot to keep their job. I’m happy to report that the vast majority successfully avoided the flu shot. But I gained some disturbing insights from this national perspective regarding flu shots that have implications for all adults in the U.S.:
1. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources’ Healthy People 2020 initiative has aggressive vaccine goals that include not only vaccinating 90% of healthcare workers by 2020, but also vaccinating all U.S. employees with the flu vaccine. Wake up, folks! Healthcare workers are just the front lines–we’re all in big pharma’s sights, and there’s no light at the end of this tunnel. In 2010, there were over 330 vaccines already on the market or in development. There will always be another vaccine to give a person, and always another person to give a vaccine. Meanwhile, states around the country are rapidly changing laws restricting access to exemptions, while adding laws to require more and more vaccines for more and more people, both children and adults. Join the NVIC Advocacy Portal to stay abreast of proposed laws and legislative activities in your state and around the country.
2. According to a hospital attorney, CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) will be deducting 2% of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to hospitals whose employee flu vaccination rates is less than 90%. This means that the scientific merits (or lack thereof) of the flu vaccine policy are irrelevant to hospital policy makers. By making this a financial issue for hospital administrators, those orchestrating the flu vaccine agenda have managed to keep the medical science off the table, a necessity for pushing flu vaccines given the credible information revealing that flu vaccines don’t work can and do cause permanent disability and death, as confirmed by Cochrane Collaboration reviews and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program respectively.
3. The vast majority of hospitals have implemented religious exemption policies that violate federal law. They are overly restrictive, requiring exemption applicants to have support from a member of the clergy or to belong to an organized religion with tenets opposed to immunizations, but these requirements violate the First Amendment of the Constitution and Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. My clients and I have been reforming hospital policies around the country to bring them into compliance with federal law, but we’ve only scratched the surface, and there’s often no way to tell whether or not the institution’s policy is revised for all employees when a hospital allows one employee who hires an attorney to have the exemption. What is clear is that employees who do not involve an attorney have a much lower success rate. One hospital administrator reportedly told a nurse that the hospital system had received over a 1,000 requests for exemptions, but had allowed only 4 exemptions, and that story was not an isolated instance. Hospitals take a “maximize immunization rates at all costs” approach. They come in only two flavors where vaccines are concerned–aggressive, and very aggressive.
4. A high percentage of my clients reported that their hospital had been bought out recently. This was reported from healthcare workers all over the country, so cannot be a mere coincidence. There appears to be an orchestrated plan to consolidate control over and throughout the healthcare industry, but toward what specific ends I’m uncertain at this time. Anyone with insight into this phenomenon is welcome to contact me (contact information available at www.vaccinerights.com).
5. Disturbingly, there is virtual unanimity among hospital workers about the suppressive nature of their work environment. Many of my clients reported that many of their peers also didn’t want the flu vaccine, but they were afraid to request an exemption for fear of being singled out and fired just for asking. Many of those who came to me for help expressed fear of being fired for doing so, but their opposition to the flu vaccines outweighed that concern. Ironically, there is apparently little room in the hospital work world for employees to have and express their professional opinions about healthcare issues. This makes for unhappy employees, and that surely compromises the quality of care given to patients. When healthcare professionals are dictated healthcare policy rather than consulted for their professional opinions about it, there is something seriously wrong with the healthcare industry.
6. Most hospitals are requiring flu vaccines for their employees as a matter of hospital policy, and not state law (and state exemption laws generally apply to students, and not to employees). But there are growing efforts to enact laws requiring hospitals to mandate flu vaccines around the country.
We are all already targeted for vaccination. We must all get involved and state our opposition to vaccine mandates. I’m here to assist with individual rights and vaccine legislation anywhere in the U.S. To the best of my knowledge, Oregon is the only state with a law prohibiting hospitals from mandating flu vaccines. Oregon hospitals have, not surprisingly, lower healthcare worker immunization rates than other states. This may be the only objective measure of healthcare workers’ professional opinion about healthcare worker flu vaccines.
7. Perhaps what stood out most among my healthcare worker clients was their collective commitment to their work. Nurses in particular love their work. They are motivated by compassion and empathy for their patients’ suffering, and by their desire to make a difference in their patients’ lives. It takes a very special person to dedicate their life to helping others who are sick or hurt, and a very courageous person to stand up to an oppressive employer and insist on your right to refuse a vaccine when doing so could cost you your job. I was privileged to work with such amazing professionals! Sadly, this outstanding quality in healthcare workers is being rapidly squeezed out of the profession, as many healthcare workers choose get fired over getting flu vaccines, but even many of those who got an exemption or took the shot are considering a career change or taking early retirement to get away from the medical dictators.
Read the full article here: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/will-flu-vaccines-be-required-all-us-health-employees-2020-a
http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/should-pregnant-women-receive-the-flu-vaccine/