WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's largest union representing health care workers said Wednesday that various protections are needed for nurses and others set to receive smallpox vaccinations three decades after the United States stopped using the vaccine.þþOfficials with the Service Employees International Union met with top Bush administration officials Wednesday, seeking assurances that workers who get sick from the vaccine can take time off and that people offered the vaccine will be properly screened for a variety of conditions first.þþ``Without better protections, the proposed plan could put hospital patients, caregivers and the public at risk,'' the union, which represents 710,000 medical workers, said in a statement.þþJerry Hauer, the top bioterrorism official at the Department of Health and Human Services, said the federal government shares many of their concerns. But he added that some of the questions fall outside the government's power to address.þþ``Many, not all, of the issues they talked with us about are things we have been very aware of and have been working on or have addressed,'' said Hauer, who attended Wednesday's meeting.þþIn the coming days, the administration is expected to announce its plan for resuming smallpox vaccinations, part of the effort to prepare for a possible bioterror attack with the virus. The disease was declared eradicated in 1980, but experts now fear it could be intentionally released by terrorists or a hostile nation like Iraq. Sick patients cannot be cured, and about 30 percent of those infected will die.þþBut the vaccine itself is risky, too. Based on studies from the 1960s, experts estimate that one or two out of every 1 million people getting the vaccine for the first time will die, and about 15 will face life-threatening injuries.þþOfficials say the Bush plan will offer the vaccine in stages, beginning with those most likely to encounter a contagious patient, including those who would be needed to help investigate suspicious smallpox cases and those who would vaccinate others if the disease were to return.þþHealth care workers are at the top of the list. Under the plan, during the first stage of vaccinations, the shots would be offered to people who work in hospital emergency rooms, and the second stage would cover all other health care workers.þþThe plan has advocates for nurses and other medical workers demanding assurances that they will be protected. Among their concerns:þþ--Time off: Some people who receive the vaccine will feel sick afterward, and the union wants to be sure they can take time off with pay. Hauer said hospital administrators will have to address this because the government cannot require that workers be given time off.þþAnother concern is that if the inoculation site is not properly sealed, the live virus in the vaccine could escape and, theoretically, infect patients, injuring them. Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that, as long as proper bandages are used, there's no reason nurses and others can't go to work.þþ--Compensation: Congress has shielded people and institutions who give vaccines from legal liability if patients are injured or killed, partly an effort to protect nurses who will be giving the shots. Injured parties will only be able to sue the federal government in federal court for damages. But the union says victims need a simpler and fairer compensation system, such as an existing fund established to compensate people injured by other vaccines.þþHauer said the issue was being examined but made no commitments.þþ--Screening: People who have compromised immune systems face particular risk and should not get the vaccine absent a certain risk of infection. That includes people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, but many who have HIV don't know it. The union wants confidential HIV tests available on the spot.þþHauer said the federal government does not plan to mandate that tests be available, but he expects that most states will have them for those who want the test.þþ--Right to say no: The federal plan will be entirely voluntary, but the union wants to be sure that workers can decline the vaccine without suffering any discrimination at work.þþThe administration's plan for vaccinations was expected by the end of September, but has yet to be officially unveiled.þþþ
Source: NY Times
