You know, there is something that I get about the anti-vaccine movement, and that’s the desire to not put things I know nothing about into my body. Obviously vaccines are good things that make society better and are not bad to put in your body, but I get that attitude. It’s the same reason I don’t eat hot dogs from sketchy street vendors — I have no idea where it’s been or what went into it.
But vaccines aren’t hot dogs, and honestly, if the sketchy hot dog guy wants to sell me a snack, he’d eat one first. It would inspire some confidence, for sure. And that’s just one reason why we like to see nurses getting flu shots.
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Pretty much every year, when cold and flu season hits, the debate rises again over whether nurses should be forced to get flu shots.
Many hospitals have a vaccinate-or-mask policy — basically, if nurses won’t get a flu shot, they’ll have to wear a mask while they’re on duty. As the above pic shows, they’re not all happy with the policy and many feel like the mask is a way of shaming nurses for not getting the shot. As this nurse has written on her mask, “I am healthy, I declined the flu vaccine, so I am being shamed.”
If she was looking for sympathy online, it was in short supply.
Many saw parallels between the vaccine and basic hygiene in a hospital setting. As @CollinOctantis wrote on Twitter, “Maybe they should get fired…what do you say? What if surgeons did not believe in hygiene and never washed their hands?”
There’s that little matter of the faith we put in nurses and their educations as well.
As @TrinaLTalma contended on Twitter, “Nurses who refuse to believe in science shouldn’t even be nurses.” It sure isn’t a good look for patients to come into a hospital and find medical professionals who don’t trust science!
And as many others pointed out, flu shots for nurses aren’t about the nurses as much as the patients.
“Flu can be lethal for babies, very young or very old people, patients with breathing problems or immunodeficient,” wrote @JeremyLevraut on Twitter. “Flu vax for nurses is preventing diseases spread inside hospitals. These anitvax nurses should be fired and then judged in court if someone dies of their stupidity.”
Surely nurses understand the idea behind vaccinations and their importance, so why do they resist getting flu shots?
A study published in BMC Nursing in 2017 put it down to a couple of big reasons: “Firstly, the idea of maintaining a strong and healthy body, which was a central motif for rejecting the vaccine. Secondly, the wish to maintain decisional autonomy – especially over one’s body and health.”
According to the CDC, the vast majority of health care professionals do get flu shots.
Their data says that, by occupation, nurses were behind only physicians and pharmacists in terms of flu vaccination rates in 2017-18, with 90.5% getting their flu shots. The CDC’s surveys said that most of those who didn’t get a flu shot avoided it because they didn’t want to get side effects or get sick from the vaccine.
However, the CDC also reminds us that “Flu vaccines CANNOT cause flu” because they’re made from killed or weakened viruses.
So, chances are that if you feel sick after getting a flu shot, it’s because you got the flu. Yes, you can still get the flu even if you get vaccinated. Most years, the flu vaccine is about 40-60% effective , which is obviously not perfect, but much better than nothing. Again, you would think nurses would know this.
Some have also argued that the 40-60% effectiveness rate for the flu vaccine just isn’t good enough to justify forcing nurses to get the shot.
Indeed, a study published in PLOS One in 2017 looked at four previous studies into how effective mandatory vaccinations for health care workers in the past have been, and found that they all vastly overstated the benefits. “The impression that unvaccinated HCWs place their patients at great influenza peril is exaggerated,” the study concluded.
However, there’s a big caveat to take with that study and the studies it examined: they all involved long-term care facilities, not hospitals.
Not exactly comparing apples to oranges, but they’re also not the same environment, either. Hospitals see much more diverse problems, a wider variety of patients, and, when you get right down to it, more people .
And yet, although it might seem to make sense for nurses to get the flu shot whether they work in hospitals or not, vaccinate-or-mask policies remain controversial.
The unexpected part of the equation is that the vaccination part isn’t the source of the controversy as much as the masks are.
In some cases, vaccinate-or-mask policies have faced legal challenges, and have even been struck down.
In Canada, the Ontario Nurses’ Association won two rulings against vaccinate-or-mask policies, with the arbitrator finding that the evidence supported that masks “do not prevent the transmission of the influenza virus.” So, it’s not that the flu shot doesn’t work, just that masks aren’t effective.
It’s important to remember, however, that not everybody can get a flu shot.
Some people are allergic or have complicating factors in the medical histories. If you have an allergy to eggs, that can also cause issues with flu shots. And kids under six months of age are particularly vulnerable because they can’t get flu shots.
But that’s why it’s important for everyone who can get a flu shot to get one, and especially those who will be exposed to the flu virus more often and have more opportunities to spread it to vulnerable people.
Maybe nurses shouldn’t be forced to get a flu shot, but you’d think it would be easier for health care professionals to trust their colleagues at the CDC and make the responsible choice, especially considering what’s at stake.
