Nurses Express Safety Concerns About H1N1 Vaccine

By Jacob Molyneux, blog editor

Nurse blogger Not Nurse Ratched has written a post on her decision not to get the H1N1 vaccine shot until she is more convinced of its safety.

I’m just urging caution against the knee-jerk fear reaction that is, no doubt, going to make hordes of people swarm out to clamor for this vaccine. I’ll be watching for more data on it and might modify my decision, but for now I’m going to just say no.

Judging from responses to a recent post we ran on the topic (“cancel my subscription” appeared more than once), the loudest clamor may be from those who are driven by fear of the vaccine rather than fear of the H1N1 virus. In the post in question, Doug Olsen, a nurse ethicist, examined the ethical side of the question of whether or not nurses should get vaccinated. 

(Whether or not you agree with Olsen’s guarded conclusion in favor of vaccination, his post demonstrated how a professional ethicist uses a set of concepts as tools—not to come up with a definitive answer that can be called “right” or “wrong” but instead to examine the moral dimensions of a decision. We hope that some of the concepts he used will be seen as tools to help nurses make their own informed decisions.) 

By way of update, here’s an addendum we received from Olsen that addresses some of the concerns about vaccine safety expressed in the various comments:

Any obligation of nurses to protect the patient by getting flu vaccine depends on trust in the science and in the system […]

2016-11-21T13:22:41-05:00September 9th, 2009|Ethics, nursing perspective|10 Comments
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Is It Ethical for a Nurse to Decline the H1N1 Vaccine?

By Douglas Olsen, PhD, RN. Olsen is an AJN contributing editor who co-coordinates the journal’s Ethical Issues department and a nurse ethicist with the National Center for Ethics in Health Care at the Veterans Health Administration in Washington, DC. The views he expresses here are meant to stimulate discussion of this topic and not to serve as pronouncements guiding what nurses should or shound not do. The views are his alone and should not be construed as representing those of AJN or of the National Center for Ethics in Health Care or the Veterans Health Administration.

MailOnlineFluJabScreenshotPublic health experts advocate widespread flu vaccination for people who give direct care to patients. However, in the past less than 40% of health care workers have been vaccinated for flu, and in a recent Nursing Times survey from the UK 30% of nurses said they would decline H1N1 vaccine and only 37% said “Yes” they would take the vaccine. Here are some thoughts on how to sort out the question from an ethical perspective.

Nurses, as patients, should be accorded the same respect for their decisions about health care, including the right to refuse a treatment, that is due to all patients. In ethics this is called respect for patient autonomy.

Professional obligation. However, nurses have a professional obligation to do […]

2016-11-21T13:23:00-05:00August 26th, 2009|career, Ethics, infectious diseases, Nursing, Public health|28 Comments
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Bloggers Who Blur Line Between Product Reviews and Paid Advertising May Face Regulation

I listened with interest because I frequently receive requests from companies that want us to casually mention their products or Websites on this blog. What the marketers who send these promotional materials don't seem to know is that AJN maintains a very clear separation between editorial and advertising content. This is very very important to us at a time when there are daily reports of research that's been ghostwritten by pharmaceutical companies and of influenctial physicians and health care reporters with close ties to various health care industries.

2016-11-21T13:23:51-05:00August 11th, 2009|Ethics, healthcare social media, nursing perspective|2 Comments
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Nurse Whistle-Blowers Pay Heavy Price For Doing the Right Thing

By hellosputnik, via Flickr By hellosputnik, via Flickr

Late Friday afternoon I spoke with Clair Jordan, the executive director of the Texas Nurses Association. Jordan and others at the TNA have been working in support of two Texas nurse whistleblowers, Anne Mitchell and Vicki Galle, who in June were fired from their jobs, arrested, and indicted on third-degree–felony criminal charges, Jordan said. Mitchell and Galle had filed an anonymous complaint with the Texas Medical Board against a physician at their workplace, Winkler County Memorial Hospital, in Kermit, Texas. The nurses believed the physician to have acted in ways that jeopardized patient care; the complaint, in documenting examples of this care, identified patients by their case number. The physician complained; the local sheriff investigated; charges were filed; the nurses lost their jobs. […]

2016-11-21T13:24:30-05:00August 3rd, 2009|Ethics, Nursing|4 Comments
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Readers Comment on Vicodin, Percocet Ban

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In his July 6 post on the proposed Vicodin, Percocet ban, AJN editor Jacob Molyneux wrote, “A number of clinicians and patients have expressed alarm at the potential loss of Vicodin and Percocet, both of which are mainstays of pain management in the U.S.” He cited pain expert Carol Curtiss’s concern that such a ban could have “even more drastic implications than most people yet understand,” then asked readers, “Should we worry?”

Some commenters think so:  nester writes

If suddenly the combos become unavailable and pain relief is that much harder to come by, every Tom, Dick, and Harry with a sprain is going to flock to the ER for the good stuff… not once, but daily until the pain is gone or they are refused treatment.  If you can’t go to just any doc to get narcotic pain relievers, the pain relief specialists will have lines out the door also.

And Abigail Nobel says, “Educate before banning these affordable, essential components of pain control. Why should everyone suffer for the carelessness of a few?”

But Judy Newberger says that although she initially agreed with the ban, an interview with an elderly patient who was given Percocet and was already taking acetaminophen changed her mind.

Labels were not read, discharge papers were not thoroughly reviewed. Did no one review what meds he was on before they sent him home? I now am FOR removing Rx and OTC combination pain and other combination meds with acetaminophen.

Thanks to all for […]

2016-11-21T13:25:09-05:00July 17th, 2009|nursing perspective, pain management|0 Comments
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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