Pro-Con | Should the government mandate swine flu shots for key medical and armed forces personnel?

Pros and Cons

Swine flu is the predominant flu strain being reported to the Centers for Disease Control. Flu levels remained above normal during the summer, and reports are increasing. Moreover, the current swine flu appears to strike younger, otherwise healthy people hardest, leading to the real prospect of massive serious morbidity and avoidable deaths.

The potential for more than an epidemic — even a pandemic — is real. If this flu continues on its current track, millions of Americans may need medical assistance all at once.

Medical personnel are needed on the job during any health care emergency. Similarly, vital security personnel are needed to fend off danger. Our armed forces are another special situation; their readiness may depend on ordering personnel to receive the flu shots. As a condition of employment, employers must direct these personnel to receive shots and the employees must follow this direction or lose their jobs, absent a special excuse. This action to protect the public is unpalatable but necessary.

| Jeffrey Axelrad, George Washington University Law School

NO

The rush of the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health in endorsing the swine flu vaccine has created fear, suspicion, and angst among both the general public and the health provider community.

Added to the H1N1 vaccine is an oily concoction called squalene that has been shown to cause severe autoimmune conditions, including multiple sclerosis and lupus.

Four New York state nurses recently filed suit before the New York Supreme Court asking it to overturn an order that requires all health-care workers in the state to get both the seasonal and swine flu vaccinations.

After all the reassurances about the safety of the H1N1 vaccine by senior U.S. government officials, the campaign appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

Increasingly Americans are resisting this wholesale violation of their civil liberties. When all is said and done, it’s likely they’ll be glad they “just said no.”

| Wayne Madsen, McClatchy-Tribune News Service

Posted on Sat, Oct. 17, 2009 10:15 PM