Groups call for mandatory flu vaccinations for health workers

USA Today: "The American Academy of Pediatrics plans to call for all health workers to get flu vaccinations, saying unvaccinated doctors, nurses and other medical staffers pose a threat to patients. The academy, which represents 60,000 pediatricians, is the latest of several organizations that now back mandatory flu shots for health workers. ... 'They're all unanimously saying this is a patient-safety issue,' says Gregory Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic's vaccine research group. ... The new push to make flu shots compulsory for health workers was prompted by low vaccination rates during last year's swine flu pandemic, Poland says." According to the CDC, less than 40 percent of  health workers got vaccinated last season (Sternberg, 9/7).

---

This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.