Conscientious objection and rights
Immunisation is an interesting topic. On one hand, it is handed out as a sure-fire way to avoid a list of diseases from A-Z and on the other there is a plethora of information sites on refusing to vaccinate. My personal opinion here is that immunisations have not been shown to be dangerous (as opposed to being shown that they’re safe) and confer benefits on the individual as well as the whole population through herd immunity (which is different from herb immunity which I just typed twice! 
). That said, immunisation is not a 100% preventative for any disease, and there are risks of immunisation, such as that if you never catch wild-type chickenpox you risk getting a very nasty case of shingles as an adult.
For my placement in just 6 weeks, I am supposed to have had a long list of immunisations, as well as having had a police check, renewed my first aid certificate and bought a uniform. I guess that list is revealing of where I stand on it - getting my immunisations up to date and updated because I want to go to Malaysia in a few years is just like ordering my uniform and getting the police to state that I’ve not so far been a danger to society.
So what happens when a healthcare worker is refused employment or a placement because of lack of immunisation? Is it a violation of their rights? Is it reasonable for Houses of Sick to refuse to allow its workers to be possibly hurt by someone in there with a strain of something? Is it reasonable to say that hospitals want to minimise the number of people possibly affected by or participating in an outbreak of something by insisting that the people they employ are immunised? Is it ridiculous to do so because you are requiring people to do something to their bodies and universal precautions in theory should prevent this kind of transmission? Is it discrimination to refuse to employ someone because they are not immunised, even if the lack of immunisation is on the grounds of conscientious objection, religion, or allergy to the vector (some are made in eggs)?
I know in the past that for placements some people have signed forms stating they are conscientious objectors to immunisation and so they are allowed to participate but this door is slowly closing, regardless of how much the words "should be immunised" are bandied around in the forms that I see about placements and employment. I also know of one midwife who did not immunise and completed her degree but is now unable to be employed!
Would you want to be treated by a nurse or assisted by a midwife that isn’t immunised? Do you assume health care workers are immunised? Does it come under "first do no harm" to patients… or should it be "first do no harm to yourself"? Can you be a carrier of something even if you’re immunised? If you aren’t immunised, how do you feel about this? I am so, it’s a moot point what I think about doing so or not (I felt that the risks of being immunised were much smaller than the risks of getting ill, or of passing on something nasty to newborns) but I am also doing homeopathic support for myself having had a large number of shots recently.
I would not have a problem with hiring a health care provider who had chosen against being immunised. I know that to make a decision like that in the paternalistic culture we live in now would have required that health care provider to have done a lot of research and be clear on exactly why she is doing it. I would trust her to know what is in the best interests of her own health.
I am wary of what the medical profession tell us we have to do to ourselves to be healthy. They are not always right, and they should not have the power they have in society to adopt a godlike voice on issues of health (remember these godlike medical creatures are the same ones increasing the rates of caesarean daily and claiming its just as safe -or safer- than vaginal birth. And they’ve made some pretty outrageous claims in the past too, that have serious consequences, for example performing hysterectomies to take away cramps! We don’t know 100% what the consequences of immunisation will be for humanity down the track. But we know enough to know that it is not something we should blindly do simply because the medical profession tell us to). Sometimes they say things to get what they want. And lets not forget that medicine and pharmaceuticals are business. Bottom line is, they profit from us taking all their prescriptions, and advice.
Comment by Sazz — April 9, 2007 @ 10:06 am
I would not have a problem with hiring a health care provider who had chosen against being immunised. I know that to make a decision like that in the paternalistic culture we live in now would have required that health care provider to have done a lot of research and be clear on exactly why she is doing it. I would trust her to know what is in the best interests of her own health.
I am wary of what the medical profession tell us we have to do to ourselves to be healthy. They are not always right, and they should not have the power they have in society to adopt a godlike voice on issues of health (remember these godlike medical creatures are the same ones increasing the rates of caesarean daily and claiming its just as safe -or safer- than vaginal birth. And they’ve made some pretty outrageous claims in the past too, that have serious consequences, for example performing hysterectomies to take away cramps! We don’t know 100% what the consequences of immunisation will be for humanity down the track. But we know enough to know that it is not something we should blindly do simply because the medical profession tell us to). Sometimes they say things to get what they want. And lets not forget that medicine and pharmaceuticals are business. Bottom line is, they profit from us taking all their prescriptions, and advice.
Comment by Sazz — April 9, 2007 @ 10:07 am