Formed in 2011, HealthCare Professionals for Vaccine Choice is working to secure vaccine exemptions for employees in the Michigan workplace. Doctors, nurses, therapists and other hospital employees are losing their jobs because they have to choose between having to take a potentially dangerous drug and their career. This is unacceptable. No one should be forced to take a drug as a condition of employment. We need your help to pass legislation – please join in our efforts.
Legislation & Activism
"Next to vaccine exemptions for school, what could be more important than a vaccine exemption for your job? It is health care worker jobs today – whose jobs will they be tomorrow?"
HealthCare Professionals for Vaccine Choice is working with Michigan Opposing Mandatory Vaccines. We are urging our legislators to introduce and pass legislation that will allow vaccine exemptions in the workplace.
A BRIEF HISTORY
Shortly after the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) issued a Position Paper in 2005 entitled, "Influenza Vaccination of Healthcare Workers and Vaccine Allocation for Healthcare Workers during Vaccine Shortages," hospital employees began being fired for refusing influenza vaccines as a condition of employment. When the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) announced in June 2010 that it did not support mandatory influenza vaccines for healthcare workers, SHEA revised its Position Paper. SHEA views influenza vaccination of healthcare personnel (HCP) a core patient and HCP safety practice with which noncompliance should not be tolerated. More hospitals begin enforcing a No Shots – No Job policy (please click here to read the SHEA Position Paper). Also in 2006, The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) announced its approval of an infection control standard that requires accredited organizations to offer influenza vaccines to its staff. The pressure to mandate influenza vaccines for employees in the hospital workplace continues – from the CDC through the accrediting organizations (like JCAHO).
With no laws offering protection, healthcare workers are being threatened, written up, and eventually fired for not complying with mandatory flu shots. Health care workers deserve the same vaccine exemption protections as school students!
HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP:
