Are Health Care Workers Who Decline Flu Shots Irresponsible?

Scientific American article noting that more than a third of U.S. health care employees were not vaccinated last flu season. Research shows that the unvaccinated staff are at risk of getting sick--and passing that infection on to at-risk patients.

Many of those in the health care field who opted not to get the shot did not think that the vaccine "was worth the time and expense" or that it could "protect them and the persons around them from the disease," according to a recent CDC report. About 40 percent of the health workers who did not get vaccinated said that they did not consider influenza a serious threat to the health of people around them—and about 55 percent said that they did not think the vaccine would protect those around them.

Unvaccinated health care staffers are second only to unvaccinated adults living with kids in their likelihood of coming down with the flu. About 18.7 percent of unvaccinated health workers versus 24 percent of unvaccinated adults with children in the home get the flu each year, according to Allison McGeer, a microbiologist and infectious disease consultant at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. McGeer notes that there is "no question in my mind, from a scientific point of view, that no one should be working in health care without being vaccinated."