Doctor against mandatory flu shots for health-care workers with current vaccine

TORONTO – A prominent infectious diseases specialist says mandatory flu shots for health-care workers should be put on hold until there is a more effective influenza vaccine.

Dr. Michael Gardam makes the argument in a commentary published in this week’s issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

He and a colleague suggest that this is not the right fight to take on, saying pushing flu shots in this way could undermine other vaccination efforts.

Gardam says he gets a flu shot every year and urges others to as well, but thinks mandatory programs for health-care workers could end up being challenged in the courts.

His position is being contested by others in public health.

Flu vaccine proponent Dr. Allison McGeer says a better vaccine would be welcome, but the current one does help to save lives and should be used by health-care workers.

McGeer, who is head of infection control at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, says the situation is analogous to cancer treatments — the current therapies aren’t perfect and better ones are needed, but in the meantime, the existing tools are used.

Gardam says given the efficacy of flu vaccines — estimated to be about 50 to 70 per cent effective — he’s not sure courts would side with hospitals or provinces that decided to require their health-care workers to be vaccinated against influenza.

And Gardam, who is head of infection control at Toronto’s University Health Network, worries this type of fight would be used by the anti-vaccination movement.

Dr. Perry Kendall, British Columbia’s chief medical officer of health, disagrees with Gardam’s position. He says this issue comes down to ethics — health-care workers have an ethical responsibility to take the steps available to them to reduce the chance they’ll infect their patients with the flu.

British Columbia passed a controversial policy requiring health-care workers to get a flu shot or wear masks at work during flu season. But after the provincial nurses’ union protested, the province announced last fall that while it wasn’t rescinding the policy, it wouldn’t penalize workers who didn’t follow it.