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Half of California health workers did not get flu shots

In a demonstration of what many experts would call appalling medical ethics, only slightly more than half of healthcare workers in California hospitals received a flu shot last year, despite the dangers that presents for patients.

According tot a report by Business Week, a consumer group has found that just over half of California health care workers received flu shots during the 2008-2009 flu season.

Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, said that state public health department data shows an overall vaccination rate of just over 52 percent for workers from nearly 250 hospitals and hospital groups.

The report cites studies that say an 80 percent vaccination rate is necessary to prevent health care workers from transmitting the flu to patients.

Some California hospitals reported that fewer than one-quarter of health care workers had received shots.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended flu shots for all healthcare workers, including physicians, with direct patient contact since the early 1980s and for all healthcare workers since 1993.

Separately, according to a 2009 RAND Corporation survey of health-care workers in Los Angeles, nearly 40% of health-care providers had not been inoculated by this time last year. About 12% of survey participants said they had intended to get the flu shot, but had yet to do so by the beginning of last year's infamous H1N1 flu season. Now, two public health organizations have teamed up to propose mandatory vaccinations for health workers for the coming year.


Time For Flu Vaccine Is Now

Health officials said now is the time to prepare because of lessons learned during last year's H1N1 flu pandemic.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed the guidelines health departments are following after some of the things that happened last year.

Those changes included when people should start getting vaccinated and who should get the vaccinations.

This year, everyone over the age of 6 months should get a flu vaccination, health officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are suggesting.

CDC usually only recommends the seasonal flu vaccine for children between the ages of 6 months and 18 years, and those who are prone to illnesses.

But this year’s suggestion is appropriate, especially considering how many cases of H1N1, or swine flu, proliferated last year, said Richard Vogt, executive director of the Tri-County Health Department.

This season, only one shot of the vaccine is needed to protect against both H1N1 and seasonal flu.

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