------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 20, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
RESIST WAR PROPAGANDA PLOY: HEALTH WORKERS OPT OUT OF VACCINE PROGRAM By Sharon Eolis, R.N./N.P. The Bush administration's smallpox vaccination campaign is part of the drive to mobilize the country for war against Iraq. This plan is facing resistance from hundreds of hospitals and thousands of nurses and doctors who are refusing to participate. Administration officials had assumed that 500,000 health care workers would immediately step up and volunteer to take this vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control, only 687 people in 16 states volunteered in the first two weeks of the program. A New York Times' national survey of state health officials, published Feb. 7, found that more than 350 hospitals were refusing to participate and many others had not made a commitment. Nurses' unions in California, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Texas have advised their members not to volunteer. Beverly Hiestand, CWA Local 1168 chief steward for Nurses United, in Buffalo, N.Y., said that a Feb. 7 memo put out by the union's national leadership reported that there continues to be a lot of concern about the program among health care workers. In a letter to President George W. Bush on Jan. 23, CWA President Morton Bahr, representing 100,000 health care and public safety workers, called for a delay in the federal vaccination campaign. "Critical concerns brought to light by experts in the American medical community, health care workers and medical scholars regarding the National Smallpox Vaccination Program raise serious doubts about the safety and effectiveness of the civilian inoculation plan," said the letter. "In that regard, I urge you to delay the program until all concerns have been adequately addressed." The New York State Nurses' Association has demanded that the hospitals negotiate terms for compensating nurses who may get sick and lose work hours as a result of the vaccination. The Bush administration has decreed that the drug companies making the vaccine are exempt from having to pay compensation to victims and families who may suffer side effects and even death. The vaccine has more risks than many others because it is made from a live cowpox virus. The period of contagion is long--up to three weeks. In this period of exposure, healthcare workers who are vaccinated are endangering themselves, their patients, families and co-workers. The last time smallpox vaccine was used, in the 1960s, there were 52 life-threatening complications and two deaths per million people. (New York Times, Feb. 7) Today more than 50 million people are at higher risk because they have immune suppression from cancers, HIV/AIDS, lupus, organ transplants and skin disorders. They should not get the vaccine or be exposed to those who have. Dr. Nadia Marsh, organizer of Doctors and Nurses Against the War, said, "A campaign to vaccinate millions of people in the U.S. is unnecessary. It's a cynical effort by the Bush administration to create fear and paranoia in the population." She continued, "From a public health perspective it neither makes sense nor addresses the real medical problems faced by a growing number of working-class people in this country. Instead of spending millions of dollars on a disease that does not currently exist, a large segment of the health care community is demanding that the funds being used for this vaccine campaign instead provide health insurance for the 41.5 million people who are uninsured." Hillel Cohen, a doctor of public health who is an organizer of opposition to the Bush vaccination plan, explained, "The smallpox vaccination scheme imposes a military and police agenda on public health. The bio-terrorism preparedness program as a whole provides a cover for military research and development of biological and chemical warfare agents and undermines the credibility of legitimate public health efforts." More information on opposition to the smallpox vaccination campaign-- including a pledge by health care workers not to get or give the vaccine- -can be found at www.healthworkers.org. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
