Oct 5, 2009 6:02 am US/Eastern
Health Workers Resistant To H1N1 Vaccine Mandate
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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A vile of Panvax H1N1 Vaccine is displayed during the launch of the National pandemic (swine flu) influenza vaccination campaign by the Minister for Health and Ageing Nicola Roxon at Swan Park Leisure Centre on September 30, 2009 in Perth, Australia. Four
Paul Kane/Getty Images
Parents may have a choice when it comes to vaccinating their kids, but that's not the case for New York's health care workers.
It's a move that has some workers feeling sick.
Outside New York's Capitol, health care workers vowed to fight an unprecedented order from state health officials – a requirement for every health care worker to get seasonal and H1N1 flu shots, or face the possibility of getting fired.
Physical therapist Carole Blueweiss is weighing that risk.
"I'm healthy and I have a strong immune system, and I don't want to feel like someone is telling me what to put into my body to protect me," Blueweiss said.
But the state maintains that the objective is to reduce the possibility of infecting patients.
"Every flue season, in New York for example, we have about 160 outbreaks of flu inside health care institutions," Dr. Richard Daines, New York State Commissioner of Health, said.
In past years, when vaccinations were voluntary, only 40 percent of the state's 925,000 health care workers got vaccinated.
"That's kind of intolerable – that patients should come to a hospital and not know that the health care workers are vaccinated," Dr. Daines said.
But Blueweiss, who plans to give her son the seasonal vaccine, doesn't trust H1N1 for him or herself. In her 15 years as a physical therapist at a large New York hospital, she says she's never gotten a flu shot and never had the flu.
"We are health care workers, and we are not even given the credit or the respect to make the decision," Blueweiss said. "It's outrageous, and it feels criminal and anti-American."
While New York has the only state-wide mandate, a number of private and public hospitals are also requiring employees to take flu shots.
There is also a strong resistance to the vaccine from the general public. A new Harvard University poll shows that only four in 10 adults intend to take the vaccine themselves, and only six in 10 plan to give it to their children.
New York's mandate affects health care workers in hospitals, outpatient clinics and home care services.
CBS 2's Randall Pinkston contributed to this report.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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