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When Politics and Healthcare Meet No One Wins
When politics and healthcare meet, no one wins. Certainly not me, anyway.
As a practicing nurse in California, I am mandated by law to comply with a two-dose mRNA vaccine with booster. Regardless of masking and a downward trend, the California Department of Public Health has instituted guidelines that pressure all medical staff (and medically adjacent) to get a booster if they’ve already been vaccinated. Religious exemptions will only be tolerated if they were previously known, documented, and thoroughly supported. No “new” exemptions will be allowed.
This means that a convert to fundamental Christianity who discovers that the mRNA vaccines were created with descendent lines of cells taken from aborted fetal tissue will not be allowed an exemption for their newfound religiosity.
For those of us who love freedom, this alone is concerning.
But for me, personally, what is more concerning is the following CDPH guidance about medical exemptions:
To determine qualifying medical reasons, the physician, nurse practitioner, or other licensed medical professional practicing under the license of a physician should refer to Interim Clinical Considerations for Use of COVID-19 Vaccines from the CDC, specifically, clinical considerations, as well as contraindications and precautions. The identified contraindications include:
- Documented history of severe allergic reaction to one or more components of all the COVID-19 vaccines available in the U.S.
- Documented history of severe or immediate-type hypersensitivity allergic reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine, along with a reason why you cannot be vaccinated with one of the other available formulations.
It is not enough that my doctor indicates that I had a severe reaction to my Covid vaccine; I have to convince my doctor to justify why I cannot take another vaccine that is available. Additionally, guidance states that only severe anaphylaxis is a reason to exempt employees. When referred to the CDC website, it makes it very clear what it considers to be a severe enough reaction:
For the purposes of this guidance, regarding severity of allergic reactions:
Severe allergic reactions include:
- Possible anaphylaxis, a progressive life-threatening reaction that typically includes urticaria but also with other symptoms such as wheezing, difficulty breathing, or low blood pressure (see Appendix D)
- Any angioedema affecting the airway (i.e., tongue, uvula, or larynx)
- Diffuse rash which also involves mucosal surfaces (e.g., Stevens-Johnson Syndrome)
Non-severe allergic reactions may include:
- Urticaria (hives) beyond the injection site
- Angioedema (visible swelling) involving lips, facial skin, or skin in other locations. NOTE: Any angioedema affecting the airway (i.e., tongue, uvula, or larynx) is considered a severe allergic reaction (see above).
Additionally, people who have had myocarditis following their Covid vaccination with a mRNA vaccine are still somehow recommended to get a booster once they have recovered.
Ultimately, the CDC decides to cover itself by indicating that if these guidelines aren’t specific enough (vaccinate everyone, all the time!), you can have one of their special scientists look at your patient’s case to determine if they should or should not get a vaccine or booster. I’m sure, given the above guidance, that they will be completely circumspect and immune to any sort of government pressure to impose vaccinations for all but the most immediate life-threatening of reactions.
At the end of the day, for me, it has emerged like most bureaucratic decrees; though everyone agrees that I should not get another vaccine because of the severity of the reaction, no one wants to be the one to sign the letter. Filing this letter with my institution leaves it open to CDPH, which leaves it open to the CDC. Both of these entities could have a negative impact on my physicians (yes, plural) who do not want to be the one to formally make the call; one could lose a practice, one could lose a research grant, one could lose a prestigious place on a medical board. If it came out that they helped someone avoid guidelines, it could be perceived as anti-vax behaviors and a lack of confidence in science. It could be perceived as defiance of common-sense medical guidelines put in place by the CDC. It could also impact their licensing from the state board (rumor has it).
It could be very, very negative for them.
Additionally, and perhaps more pedestrian, no one wants to sit down and take the time to write a letter that justifies to CDPH exactly how it is that I should be exempt from both types of vaccines (because guidance is that if you’re allergic to one type, you get the other). Time is, after all, money. Particularly in healthcare, the time taken to write a letter of this magnitude requires research, finesse, and an iron-clad line of argument. This is time that would or could be better spent in rooms with patients, teaching medical students, writing research papers, or cutting down the mountain of digital charting that depresses every practitioner in every state.
At the end of the day, these policies are not good for anyone individually and probably not even good for society as a whole, as Covid peters out into a milder, friendlier version of SARS.
But most importantly to me, this policy endangers not only my livelihood, but realistically, also my life as getting another vaccine could potentially be deadly. It is one thing to insist that we are vaccinated for patient care. It is another to disregard thrombocytopenia, coagulopathies, allergies, and even myocarditis in a push for political correctness.
At the end of the day, my job is not worth my death, even if it means leaving patient care.
Published in General
She has been diagnosed as a conversion disorder or functional neurologic disorder according to her parents …you might want to look up what that means..
Thanks goodness she’s expendable. Bumps in the road as the medical establishment drives us to the promised land of health and longevity.
Yeah, we know the spin. It’s bravo sierra.
Not spin- that is what HER parents say the doctors have told them-unless you are trying to claim the conspiracy is so vast they have gotten to her family’s doctors…….man the Gates dude is gooood!
How condescending, arrogant and insulting.
Not a bit. And factual–it is what her parents said the doctors have diagnosed her as having. They told that to Tucker Carlson. I know you only believe what you want and deny any countervailing facts -but really-you think it arrogant to point out her medical diagnosis? Should we listen to opinions of the doctors who, like actually examined her or do you recommend we consult tarot cards?
What’s arrogant, condescending and insulting is to say we can’t rightly compare mRNA vaccines with other vaccines. I’ll compare any medical treatments I want, thank you very much.
You really haven’t looked into this at all have you? Maybe watch the Tucker Carlson piece on it, or the Joe Rogan podcast about it. She was vaccine injured and the doctors were – much like the doctors in RightNurse’s example – afraid to go on record defying the narrative.
Standard MO for this one.
Yeah-the conspiracy again-so vast -so powerful. BTW read again- it was from Tucker Carlson that I found out what her diagnosis was. Tucker just hopes you are too dumb to know what it means….
Again, you haven’t informed yourself on the details of this story. The diagnosis is the story, not the end of it.
Not sure what your point is-please explain. I did not say you can not compare the vaccines- the initial post was faulting the mRNA vaccine developers for the use of abortion derived cell line (ie HEK293)- my point was IF Pfizer/Moderna did not use the HEK293 cell line for the industry standard safety tests (and they did) THEN they would have been criticized for skipping the typical safety tests. There was enough uneasiness about a new type of vaccine that Pfizer and Moderna were not about to leave out a “routine” preclinical safety test.
Of course you can compare the safety of the different types of vaccines.
NB-again not delving into the minutia of the origin of the HEK293 cell line
I’ve got a question for you, @mimac . Are you actually interested in persuading people, or are you just here to snark?
I’m not going to say I don’t sometime get very snarky and sarcastic (just ask CarolJoy or Pseudo Hans Gruber) but it doesn’t persuade anyone and does not actually benefit pandemic mitigation efforts. Right now, trust in scientific institutions is extremely low, and public health professionals currently have a mutual disgust with most of the population. Witness this case, where someone with a likely idiosyncratic reaction to the vaccine is pressured to get the vaccine because she might be a secret antivaxxer lying about her condition.
I respect your knowledge in this field, but if you actually want to help change minds you need to use a more respectful approach.
That comment was addressed to Flicker.
No, I mean your “…you might want to look up what that means..” That is really arrogant.
And that comment, coming from a guy who scoffs at credentials less than a PhD, but is learning virology through youtube videos is a hoot.
You expected something different?
I don’t.
I have a Ph.D.
But dang if no one wants insights from Augustine and Kant and Mill and Confucius and William James in the middle of a viral outbreak.
(They really should, though.)
No, it’s just that the covid “crisis” and its governmental sponsors are a concern to me, and I can’t even write about it without pseudo-experts arrogantly insulting their way through conversations.
I don’t mind a little snark – Lord knows I’m guilty of this – what I do mind is the blind dismissal of actual case studies and the censorship of scientific data and scientists (Robert Malone, Peter McCullough, Ryan Cole among many others) countering the narratives of the medical and media establishment.
If the medical professionals and public health officials want to be taken seriously again they need to start acting like scientists again.
And you’re published in your field from what I understand.
Shh! Don’t talk like that! I might start promoting myself. Nothing good can come of that.
And they’re published, too.
McC is spectacularly published.
No. The original post was attempting to indicate that fetal cells were used in the vaccine development. Period.
It’s probably a weird autoimmune reaction, actually.
And it’s too get *the BOOSTER*. I have been fully vaccinated previously and previously was on Covid leave for my vaccine reaction (which landed me in the ER multiple times) and required medical treatment for months.
I’m not opposed to the vaccine in general. I am opposed to blackmailing doctors into denying appropriate care and insisting on detrimental treatment mandated by law.
By the way, is JJ or Novavax an option? (I don’t even know where Novavax is in terms of availability. I can’t keep track of these things!)
I’m not a big shot here, so I don’t have the appropriate word count to explain to you the wrongness of your ways and your inadequate assessment. Additionally, I’m coming off of a 13 hour shift to be followed by two more, so I don’t really have the tolerance to answer this sort of inanity kindly.
I will, however, make a small attempt:
a) Deaths from covid or deaths with covid? By a more reputable source (who shares methods and sources), USAfacts.org, total Covid on Jan 20th was 474,845. Total covid deaths were 1,920. I’ll let you work out the percentage there. Those deaths are counted if Covid was considered a “contributing factor”, which is a pretty low hurdle to cause of death.
b) Rates are unnaturally low due to underreporting of legitimate reactions (there is, however, over-reporting of total BS non-reactions, like a rash 8 months later that someone attributes to the vaccine on VAERS). I cannot comment on specific cases due to HIPAA, however I have seen a few adverse events. I cannot say whether or not the physicians treating took the time to follow up and put it into into VAERS. I can say that staff was discouraged from entertaining a suggestion of a vaccine reaction.