Colorado Springs Functional Medicine

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Flu Shot or Fired

I have this conversation all too often with people.  “My employer is making me get the flu shot or they will fire me.  Why do they do that?”

Good Intentions

Why do they force you to get a flu shot?  Most often it’s a hospital setting and the hospital doesn’t want transmission of a virus to the people that have a compromised immune system.  Hospital acquired infections is a sad reality.  In 2011, there was an estimated 721,800 infections acquired from inside the hospital.  That translates to an infection rate of 1 out of every 25 hospital patients.  75,000 of the 722,000-ish infections lead to death.  The person came to the hospital for one reason but then died due to acquiring an infection within the hospital walls.

Functional Medicine Colorado Springs

Screen shot from http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/surveillance/

 

This isn’t to poo poo the hospitals.  You go the hospital when you’re sick.  Your immune system is already tanked and now you’re exposed to a host of other sick people.  I’m sure hospitals do the best they can at preventing transmission of infectious disease.

One of those ‘good intention’ strategies is to require a flu shot for any hospital employee, even if you don’t take care of patients directly.

Sad Reality

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Flu Shot Bullying

I had a promise to myself that I would stay away from vaccine posts for a while.  I’ve had my fair share of heat on the internet about my choice not to vaccinate our kids and the reasons behind it.  There’s even blog posts about my blog posts and how I am choosing to ignore the science about vaccines and their effectiveness.  

Attacks on me don’t make me that fired up anymore but when my own clients and friends are victims of flu shot bullying, I have to step in.  I had a couple women on the verge of tears because they were given the, “If you don’t get the flu shot, you could die” speech from her doctor.

I also take care of gentleman that vehemently opposed getting the flu shot but because he has been labeled ‘immuno-compromised.’  The bully won.  He got the flu shot and as a result had a massive seizure that almost took his life.  I’m not saying the flu shot will cause a massive seizure.  The doctor called the gentleman to apologize and admit that the flu shot was the most likely trigger in the seizure. “Oops, my bad.”

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