Health care workers to oppose smallpox vaccinations

[Guest guest]

One of my colleagues is involved in circulating this pledge by health care

workers to not give or receive smallpox vaccine, unless smallpox recurs. The

pledge specifically mentions the unfair mandatory vaccines for servicemembers.

I hope members will consider signing this if they are civilian health

care workers or circulate to others who may be interested in signing.

Two major hospitals have refused to comply and Koplan (former CDC

director) has spoken against mass smallpox vaccinations.

Here is the pledge:

The Bush program to vaccinate all health care workers against smallpox is

unscientific, unethical, and most importantlydangerous. The program seems

designed to validate his war agenda rather than to protect the public's health.

Vaccinations are appropriate when the benefits clearly outweigh the risks of

side effects. This is not the case with the smallpox vaccine.

Adverse effects from smallpox vaccine can include painful swelling,

infection, rash, joint pain, malaise and fever. Perhaps a third of those

inoculated may have to stay home one or more days, as with flu-like illness.

Severe rashes, blindness, inflammation of the brain, and even death are possible

though rare. Serious complications were reported at the rate of 49-900 per

million and life threatening ones at 14-52 per million. Some 50 million people

in the U.S. with eczema, HIV/AIDS, cancer, lupus, other immune disorders, and

atopic dermatitis are at higher risk of more serious reactions. Since it is a

live virus vaccine (vaccinia: a cowpox virus) people who get the vaccination can

transmit it unwittingly to others for 3 weeks after inoculationincluding to

family members and high-risk patients. Smallpox vaccinations have so many

adverse side effects that the drug companies have insisted on legal exemption

from civil suits for illness and death arising from the vaccinations. Bad

experiences from unwarranted mass inoculations could undermine public confidence

in all immunization programs and in the competence of health workers to protect

the public's health.

In the very remote chance that an outbreak was to occur, the former

plans for quarantines and ring vaccinations might be appropriate. But there has

not been a single case of smallpox in the world for over 20 years and even the

Bush administration admits that there has been no evidence of any danger of an

outbreak. Why, then, carry out mass vaccinations?

Generating fear and hysteria over smallpox may be an effort to gain

public support for an unjust and unpopular war against Iraq, for spending even

more billions on the military, and for eroding civil liberties. Let us remember

the anthrax outbreak in 2001 that killed 5 people was initially blamed on

" foreign terrorists. " Federal investigators admitted months later that the

evidence points to a scientist from a U.S. military laboratory. Expanded

research on smallpox and vaccines could increase the number of individuals

handling smallpox virus and thus actually increase the risk of some terrible

accident or crime from a similar source. Clearly the risks of the smallpox

vaccination campaign far outweigh any presumed benefit. We don't have to go

along with it.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------\

---------------------------------------------------------

THE HEALTH WORKERS' PLEDGE:

As a health worker, my responsibility is to prevent disease, treat

illness and promote health. My obligation is to help, and above all, do no harm.

Smallpox vaccination has known and potentially serious side effects. In

the absence of any evidence of exposure or risk of exposure to smallpox virus,

it is unethical and a threat to my health and the health of the patients and

public that I serve to administer unnecessary vaccine.

Military personnel are unfairly being forced to get the vaccine and this

should be stopped. As a health worker I am being given a choice, and I choose

NO!

I will not be pressured to risk my health and the health of patients. I

will not participate in a campaign that is against the best interests of the

public I serve. I hereby pledge that, in the absence of evidence of exposure, I

will not get and will not give smallpox vaccinations.

Send your endorsement to pledge@... Please include your

name, prof. degrees if any, affiliation for identification, your email address

and phone

http://www.healthworkers.org/pledge.htm