Mandatory Flu Shots?

The New York state government is requiring that all health care workers who have direct contact with patients get both the annual flu and H1N1 vaccines. And lots of people are upset about it. Some, of course, are crying "big government" and moaning about the erosion of individual rights. But in another sign that anarchists understand the world better than libertarians, some private companies, including HCA, the largest private hospital chain, are requiring the vaccinations for their employees. All big bureaucracies, private or public, limit freedom, and since public bureaucracies are subject to more kinds of pressure, they are generally less arbitrary than private companies. Case in point: NY is allowing a religious exemption from the vaccination requirement, but HCA is not.

The rationale is that doctors and nurses who get the flu can spread it to their patients, especially hospital employees who work with sick and vulnerable people.

"The rationale begins with the health-care ethic, which is: The patient's well-being comes ahead of the personal preferences of health-care workers," New York State Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines said.

I find it interesting that only about half of health care workers get the annual flu vaccine, a number that is frustrating to disease fighters. Some of this is just the inevitable carelessness that people develop about routine activities, like doctors who don't wash their hands, or organic chemists who have to be forced by OSHA to work under fume hoods. But I think lots of people, including doctors and nurses, are freaked out about shots. A nurse in NYC:

I have a problem with being mandated to put something in my body.

Is this fed by the movies, in which injections are almost always given by bad guys and contain something horrible?

But NY State and the hospital companies are holding firm, saying that the vaccines are safe. An HCA administrator:

If somebody didn't want to wash their hands or scrub before going into surgery, you can imagine there wouldn't be a lot of tolerance for that.

There certainly wouldn't. The protection of public health is one area in which governments have long wielded great powers, going back to medieval efforts to combat the plague, so there is nothing new about any of this. And I think in this case the bureaucrats are right. Health care providers do have an obligation not to make their patients sick, one they very often fail at. Here is a simple way they can perform their duties better. If you're that freaked out about shots, and about regulations designed to protect patient health, maybe you shouldn't be working in health care.