Forced Fun
When Dr. Walter Reed started figuring out the whole yellow fever problem, he was aided by some volunteers, also infectious disease specialists, who agreed to be bitten by infected mosquitoes. Dr. Carroll contracted the disease and recovered, while Dr. Lazear died (and had the experimental camp in Cuba named in his honor). Father Damien de Veuster volunteered to set up the first Catholic parish in the leprosy colony on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, where he subsequently succumbed to the disease. Albert Schweitzer actually got a medical degree in order to qualify for missionary work in Africa, where he founded his Lambarene hospital. A lot of very fine physicians, nurses, and medics/corpsman have served in horrific combat and mass casualty environments, at obvious great personal risk. I went to Haiti with a bunch of very nice missionaries out of pure curiosity, where the only real risks I faced were their raised eyebrows and faintly scandalized expressions when I told colorful stories.
What did those actually heroic physicians and I have in common? We all chose our course of action, and voluntarily accepted the conditions under which we worked (and a week with missionaries means no alcohol in a tropical climate, so don’t tell me I don’t know hardship). A great many of our profession have accepted the risks with their work because that is what they CHOSE to do.
But now Denis McDonough, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs has announced that “The Department of Veterans Affairs will require 115,000 of its frontline health care workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in the next two months, making it the first federal agency to mandate that employees be inoculated.” This is full-stop bullshit.
Nowhere could I find that any exemption would be made for prior infection-status, or other pre-existing condition or comorbidity of concern (if anyone learns differently, please let me know!). “The mandate will apply to workers who are ‘the most patient-facing,’ Mr. McDonough said, including doctors, dentists, registered nurses, physician assistants and some specialists. Beginning on Wednesday, those health care workers will have eight weeks to get fully vaccinated or face penalties including possible removal, he said.”
For the usual fussbudgets in the upper galleries, let me say yet again, I am not, have never been, will never be anti-vaccine. Moreover, I am NOT categorically opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine, and never have been. I have always been opposed to the vaccine being MANDATED, and have always said it should be a risk vs. benefit calculation between patient and physician. Nothing has dissuaded me from this, despite All the King’s Faucis demanding that everyone including those as young as the third trimester get this experimental shot. The latest widespread propaganda tactic has been to compare mandating this jab to compulsory vaccination in children entering public schools. This comparison is not even good enough to be specious. Children are routinely inoculated against diseases that have been proven to cause significant morbidity/mortality in their population, with vaccinations that have decades of safety data behind them. Kids are not, interestingly enough, forced to get flu vaccinations, even though the flu sickens far more children than does COVID-19.
Secretary McDonough is merely a tendril of the bureaucratic impetus for unanimous, unquestioning conformity, and if a few complaining federal employees think that’s unfair, well too bad. Too bad if you are pregnant or hoping to be, too bad if you already had COVID, too bad if you are under 40 and at miniscule risk (the latest CDC numbers show a 99.5% survival rate up through age 69), and too bad if you simply don’t want the shot. McDonough said, “I am doing this because it’s the best way to keep our veterans safe, full stop,” which is bureaucratic for “Screw you, up yours, you can find work elsewhere, and McDonald’s is certainly hiring.”
This is part of a larger third wave of health care authoritarianism that is timed nicely with the corporate efforts to force everyone to join the herd, even if they already had naturally. Physicians everywhere should oppose mandating a still-experimental vaccine, even as they should encourage it in high-risk populations and other individuals whose risk: benefit ratio so suggests it. Government and Big Hospital are purportedly trying to protect patients by removing the ability of health care professionals to protect themselves in the way they see fit. This is full-stop bullshit, and it is wrong.
We had a lot of public yap-yap last year about frontline workers being “heroes.” What seems to have been quickly lost is that heroes by definition, get to choose.
This is full-stop bullshit, and it is wrong.
One of the reasons I do not post with my full name is that I am a VA physician. Human nature is weak and fallible, and individuals are rarely born good or bad. In the institution of the VA, I fear retaliation, and for good reason and personal history.
The intention of the VA is transparent. They are “embarrassed” that not all of their physicians and other “patient-facing” providers are vaccinated. (BTW – why does the VA have non-patient-facing employees, and why do they dominate the patient-facing providers?)
It is simple mathematics. If you terminate all of the opposition, there are only supporters. Ask Kim Jong-Un why he does so well in the elections in North Korea. If you terminate the non-vaccinated, then 100% of your PFP’s are vaccinated.
Notice that there is a deafening silence along the lines of – “Gee, we want all our PFP’s to be vaccinated, so we’ll give $5000 to every hesitant PFP to get vaccinated.” Instead, no carrot, all stick. Kill the downer cattle before roundup.
The silent corollary has begun. Our clinic discovered that if we have less than 60-70% of our VETERANS who are vaccinated, the clinic will suffer yet-undecided punishment. Perhaps this will become a performance measure for P4P, and if you have an undervaccinated clientele, you lose. They are forcing US to force THEM to become vaccinated. These poor bastards went in harm’s way in the name and under the flag of America. Did they come back to endure THIS?