by Missy Fluegge

Labor unions representing professionals and skilled workers from many fields have publicly opposed mandatory vaccination in written statements to a government organization. Doctors, nurses, surgeons, skilled laborers, teachers, flight attendants, manufacturing employees, energy workers, and members of many more professions have spoken out against mandatory vaccines to the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC).

This news is not new, but you probably didn’t know that so many labor unions and trade groups are collectively against mandatory vaccination. These groups, representing millions of workers, include names that may surprise you.

Over two years ago, the NVAC recommended that facilities providing health care services should consider implementing mandatory flu vaccine policies as a condition of employment. Numerous labor unions and professional organizations protested against this proposal, but mainstream media failed to publicize their comments. [1]

These Organizations Are Opposed to Flu Vaccine Mandates

Many organizations are opposed to mandatory flu vaccination and the lack of options for exemptions, including these well-known groups:

American Medical Association (AMA): 228,000 members [2]

Service Employees International Union, representing health care workers (SEIU): 1,100,000 members [3]

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons: 4,000 members [4]

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME): 1,300,000 members [5]

American Federation of Teachers (AFT): 1,600,000 members [6]

Association of Flight Attendants-Communications Workers of America (AFA): 60,000 members [7]

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions: 95,000 members

United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union: 30,000 members

What Did These Groups Really Say About Mandatory Vaccination?

Did these groups really speak out against mandatory vaccination? Yes. In a moment, we’ll take a look at the most shocking name on the list, a group comprising doctors, many of the same doctors who are recommending vaccination for their patients.

You may be surprised to learn that OSHA, a governmental organization whose aim is to promote workplace health and safety, strongly opposed mandatory vaccination. They stated:

Influenza vaccination exemptions should be allowed for HCP with valid medical contraindications to vaccinations, or religious and/or personal objections. (emphasis added)

The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions, representing health care workers in 28 regional branches, also submitted a written statement against mandatory vaccination:

Employee relations and public health are not well served by the use of coercion to achieve flu vaccination ends. And it is not consisted with our national values openness, respect, and informed consent around medical treatments we receive. (sic)

The list of objections does not stop there.

The AFL-CIO labor union, with its large, international membership base, stated firmly in their written comments:

Healthcare workers must be permitted to refuse the annual seasonal influenza vaccination without fear of reprisal for medical, religious, or personal reasons. (emphasis added)

A large organization representing government employees, the AFSCME, wrote that they:

… cannot endorse Recommendation #4 urging that employers require influenza vaccination without allowance for medical, religious and philosophical exemptions.

Members of the AFT, a professional organization for teachers, agreed that requiring teachers to accept mandatory vaccination was a change in their employment terms and could not result in termination or disciplinary action. They wrote:

The mandate should be the adoption of a comprehensive standard similar to OSHA blood-borne pathogen standard with requirements for training, voluntary immunization and declination after education. (emphasis added)

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a 70-year-old organization, comprises over 4,000 members across all specialties of medicine. Their group’s interests include protecting private medical practices and the patient-provider relationship. They stated vehemently:

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons … objects strenuously to any coercion of healthcare personnel to receive influenza immunization. It is a fundamental human right not to be subjected to medical interventions without fully informed consent. (emphasis added)

In addition to the two health care groups mentioned in this section, you might not believe which other respected health care professional organizations are opposed to mandatory vaccination.

The Surprising Big-Name Vaccine Refusers

Are you surprised to see the American Medical Association at the top of the list of mandated flu vaccine refusers? The AMA has failed to support vaccine mandates that do not allow for exemptions, as evidenced by a report the group adopted in November 2010 for member physicians, granting them vaccine exemptions:

In the context of a highly transmissible disease that poses significant medical risk for vulnerable patients or colleagues, or threatens the availability of the health care workforce, particularly a disease that has potential to become epidemic or pandemic, and for which there is an available, safe, and effective vaccine, physicians have an obligation to:

(a) accept immunization absent a recognized medical, religious, or philosophic reason to not be immunized.

(b) Accept a decision of the medical staff leadership or health care institution, or other appropriate authority to adjust practice activities if not immunized (e.g., wear masks or refrain from direct patient care). It may be appropriate in some circumstances to inform patients about immunization status. [1] (emphasis added)

This group has seen declining membership for decades since the 1950s, when 75 percent of US physicians belonged to this esteemed organization, although they have seen small but steady membership increases for the past three years, coincidentally, at the same time they adopted the vaccine exemption status outlined above.

Today, only about 15 percent of doctors practicing medicine in the US belong to the AMA. Some of this decline, according to an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, is due to the AMA’s support of government-mandated health care policies, even though the AMA has spoken against forced vaccination policies that do not permit exemptions for its own members. [8]

In addition, another group of patient care providers, 170,000 members strong, unequivocally objected to mandatory vaccination. Can you guess who its members are? Nurses. These are the same people who often administer vaccines to your child.

National Nurses United boldly summarized the many important reasons why mandatory vaccination is so dangerous, to individuals and entire industries:

… we cannot support mandatory vaccination policies, because, rather than being educated on the importance of vaccination, employees are instead coerced into accepting the vaccine, or risk being punished, retaliated against, and, in some cases, fired by their employer. Mandatory flu vaccination programs engender distrust and resistance among employees; offer a disincentive to providing vaccination education to employees, and raise ethical and legal questions about the personal employment rights of employees. This is not the way to protect public health.



Flu Vaccines Don’t Work

The irony doesn’t end with groups of doctors and nurses opposing mandatory vaccination. Flu vaccines have been proven to be ineffective.

Flu vaccines target three flu viruses that are predicted to be the most common types for the upcoming flu season. However, there are over 300 kinds of flu viruses, and it takes your body from two weeks to three months to produce a full viral response to the vaccine. Three months after vaccination, the vaccine is essentially useless to your body’s immune system, although the damaging, long-term side effects may last a lifetime, which we will talk about in a moment.

In addition, if your immune system is compromised, due to factors such as age, high sugar consumption, inadequate levels of vitamin D, or other reasons, your immune system will be unable to properly handle the vaccine. [9]

On its own website, the CDC admits that “determining how well a flu vaccine works is challenging” and that “during years when the flu vaccine is not well matched to circulating viruses, it’s possible that no benefit from flu vaccination may be observed.” [10]



Flu Vaccines Are Dangerous

As you probably know, almost 30 years ago, the US government passed a law, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which created a fund from patient taxes to compensate people who suffered injury or death by vaccines. This act granted immunity to pharmaceutical companies who make vaccines, using toxic ingredients such as aluminum, thimerosal, formaldehyde, and monosodium glutamate (MSG), in addition to including aborted human fetal tissue in their chemical cocktails. [11]

Provisions of this law created a database, commonly known as VAERS, to report adverse events caused by vaccines, a database which only receives ten percent or less of reports of actual adverse events. Even the VAERS website itself acknowledges that underrerporting is one of its main weaknesses.

Since its inception, over 330 deaths have been reportedly caused by the flu vaccine, and over 103,000 adverse events have been reported, numbers that could realistically be increased tenfold or a hundred times due to underreporting. [12]

One study of flu vaccine statistics shows that thirty percent of flu vaccines result in unwanted side effects, with up to six percent including serious effects such as hospitalization, permanent disabilities, paralysis, brain damage, increased risk of contracting swine flu, allergic reactions, narcolepsy, Guillain-Barre syndrome, increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease, and death. Children are at greatest risk for suffering these dangerous and life-threatening side effects. [13, 14]

Flu vaccines also affect the unborn. Tragically, the rate of miscarriages among pregnant women who received flu vaccines during the 2009-2010 season increased 4,250 percent, a frightening statistic which was carefully hidden from the public by the CDC, until a CDC doctor was confronted and admitted that the CDC was aware of the spike in fetal deaths. [15]



What Some Workers Are Doing to Protect Themselves

State laws in Rhode Island require health care professionals to receive a mandatory flu vaccine during any period which is declared to be a “widespread” flu outbreak, or face citations of “unprofessional conduct” against their license and a $100 fine.

However, health care workers fought back against these restrictive laws. Members of the SEIU, a union mentioned earlier in this article, banded together and filed a lawsuit, citing a lack of scientific evidence in support of the flu vaccine and compromised ability to communicate well with their patients while wearing a mask. [16]

We recently reported an example of one brave employee who responded in writing to their employer’s new, misguided and ill-informed policy to make all day care employees submit to mandatory vaccination or wear a mask and gloves throughout the entire flu season, a practice which even the CDC admits is ineffective at preventing the spread of the flu. This article, widely spread across the Internet, is an interesting and inspiring read. [17]



Conclusion

Millions of people are refusing vaccines, in record numbers, as they realize that vaccines are dangerous and ineffective. Now, unions and professional organizations are joining the ranks of anti-vaxers, at least with regard to mandatory vaccination. Those organizations value their members and know that they deserve choices about their bodies and their health care.

In return, those groups will be rewarded with a collectively healthier, more innovative work force, because their employees will not be forced to receive injections laced with toxic chemicals. Their employees will also know their ideas and opinions are respected.

To learn more about the toxic ingredients in vaccines, among the reasons why millions of people are refusing vaccination for themselves and their children, click here to safely download free information and learn the truth about vaccines.

Image: Anthony Freda Art

Missy Fluegge writes for VacTruth, where this article first appeared.