By Staff Writer - January, 14th 2014

A pregnant Pennsylvania nurse has been fired from her job with a health care company after she refused to get a flu shot because she was afraid of miscarrying. Breton's employer, Horizon Healthcare Services in Lancaster, Pa. requires that all workers be vaccinated, in order to protect patients and other employees from catching the flu. Breton offered to wear a mask instead, but Horizon insisted on the vaccine, and ultimately fired her for refusing.

By Dr. Mercola

The brainwashing about influenza vaccines runs deep, and perhaps more in the US than in many other countries. So much so that, over the past couple of years, we've heard more and more reports of health care workers being required to get vaccinated against their will or be fired from their jobs.

In 2012, Missouri health care workers were threatened with corrective action for refusing the flu vaccine and were told they'd be ineligible for pay raises.

Last year, eight nurses in Indiana were fired for not complying with the hospital's new mandatory flu vaccination rule, announced in September 2012. One of them had worked at the hospital for 22 years, with a stellar work record.

Most recently, a 29-year old pregnant nurse at a hospital was fired from her position with Horizons Healthcare Services in Pennsylvania after refusing the flu shot. She recently told CNN:

“I'm a healthy person. I take care of my body. For me, the potential risk was not worth it. “I'm not going to be the one percent of people that has a problem…  know that the CDC says to get it, and that's fine, but it was our choice to avoid the flu vaccine and the unknowns that come with that.”

Nurse Fired by Placing Baby's Safety First…

The nurse, Dreonna Breton, who has already had two miscarriages, told her employer she did not want to get a flu shot this year due to the potential risks to her baby, noting the lack of vaccine safety studies done in pregnant women. She submitted letters from both her obstetrician and primary care doctor in support of her decision, and offered to wear a mask throughout the flu season.

Personnel exempted from the flu vaccine due to religious reasons typically wear masks, and it's an effective way to protect both yourself and your patients not only from influenza but other flu-like respiratory infections as well.

Her employer disagreed, however, and told her she'd be fired as of December 17 if she didn't get vaccinated before then. A spokesman for Horizons Healthcare Services told CNN that “it's unconscionable for a health care worker not to be immunized.”

This responsible pregnant mother did her research, and subsequently rejected a pharma product. The hospital administration at Horizons Healthcare Services fired her for this. If you would like to express your unhappiness with the hospital, as well as your commitment to not going there and telling others not to as well, we encourage you to do so.

They have the right to fire her, people have the right to reject the hospital going forward.

In light of mounting research, this view is exceptionally outdated, and can hardly be considered evidence-based. “Get vaccinated” is the mantra, even though the scientific evidence backing such a recommendation is in fact grossly lacking—both in terms of efficacy and safety.

While her employer is within their legal rights to mandate flu vaccination for their workers, I would suggest that patients make their opinions known by avoiding health facilities that enact such draconian measures as forcing pregnant personnel to get vaccinated without solid evidence of safety. Especially since the medical literature is littered with studies showing that the flu vaccine doesn't work.

Is Flu Vaccination an Effective Prevention Method?

There are many studies refuting the notion that getting vaccinated against the flu is an effective way to prevent contracting and spreading the flu.

For example, not just one, but three recent studies published in the journal Eurosurveillance strongly challenge the claim that the influenza vaccine will protect you against influenza. Commenting on one of the studies analyzing the 2011-2012 flu season, the European Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) wrote:

“A multicenter study by researchers in eight European countries indicated that overall vaccine effectiveness (VE) against influenza A/H3N2 in the first months of the season was 38 percent, but after mid-February it dropped to -1 percent. 

“The concept that vaccine protection can be so short-lived provides a challenge for public health policy,” says the British report.”

In the US, the 2013 flu vaccine was found to be just 56 percent effective across all age groups reviewed by the CDC —in essence, the statistical equivalent of a coin toss…

Further, the notion that vaccinating health care workers will protect hospital patients from influenza is completely unproven. According to one 2009 Cochrane Database Review—which is the gold standard for assessing the scientific evidence for the effectiveness of commonly used medical interventions:

“There is no credible evidence that vaccination of healthy people under the age of 60, who are HCWs [health care workers] caring for the elderly, affects influenza complications in those cared for.”

And, as for the general adult population, Cochrane published the following conclusion in 2010:

“Influenza vaccines have a modest effect in reducing influenza symptoms and working days lost. There is no evidence that they affect complications, such as pneumonia, or transmission.

…The review demonstrated that reliable scientific evidence confirming that influenza vaccines are effective is thin and there is plenty of reason to suspect that there may be a manipulation of conclusions when the studies are funded by drug companies.“

Add to this the groundbreaking 2013 pertussis study showing that while the pertussis vaccine can cut down on serious clinical disease symptoms, it doesn't eliminate transmission of whooping cough. While that study was on whooping cough and not influenza, the research struck a major hole in the argument that vaccines achieve herd immunity, which is used as justification for mandatory vaccination campaigns of all kinds.

The Flu Vaccine Is Not Without Risks

Many are now so used to the idea of the flu vaccine that they don't even stop to consider the potential risks, which can be severe. For example, one recent article out of the United Kingdom tells the story of 15-year old Chloe Glasson, who developed narcolepsy four months after getting Pandemrix, an influenza vaccine licensed in Europe but not distributed in the U.S. She now falls asleep up to 30 times a day.

It's also important to realize that the flu vaccine may not prevent you from either getting influenza or suffering influenza complications. In Portland, OR, a five-year old boy reportedly recently died from flu-related complications. He received a flu shot the month prior his death. Tragically, because this child was vaccinated, nobody thought to check for influenza. Instead, the doctor prescribed steroids. As reported by KVAL TV:

“Calandra said her 5-year-old Ronan came down with the flu Friday Dec. 20 while she and her husband were working through the flu. Calandra took Ronan to his pediatrician when he developed a barking cough often characterizing croup  ‘She didn't think about doing an influenza test, because it had been past the 48-hour mark for the antivirals,' said Calandra. She started giving Ronan doses of steroidal medication Monday, prescribed by his pediatrician to combat the coughing, croup symptoms.”

How many health care workers who get the flu shot will get sick with influenza and keep on working because everyone will assume they don't have influenza? They will then come in contact with immune-suppressed patients in the hospital. Yet, the unvaccinated and healthy workers are prevented from caring for the patients…

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