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Medpagetoday.com REPORTS HERE that "implementing mandatory flu shot policies for healthcare workers more than doubled coverage rates, researchers found.  Rates jumped from about 40% to more than 90% after influenza vaccination was made mandatory at the University of California Irvine...."

"Mandatory vaccination policies appear to successfully capture a large portion of healthcare providers who are not opposed to receipt of the vaccine but who have not made vaccination a priority," they wrote.

"It's long been a challenge to achieve high flu shot coverage rates for healthcare professionals, even though they're at higher risk for exposure to patients with the disease and they run the risk of transmitting the virus to other patients."

"Unlike vaccination mandates for several other diseases, such as measles and hepatitis B, hospital employees in the U.S. are, by and large, not required to get an annual flu shot.
Hospitals and other institutions have made several efforts to ramp up vaccination rates. In 2006, for instance, the University of California Irvine instituted a series of vaccination campaigns, including using mobile vans to bring vaccines to off-site clinical areas and using mobile carts to provide shots at meetings. Ultimately, the program culminated in a mandatory vaccination policy."

"They looked at the impact of these vaccination campaigns on the proportions of healthcare workers who were vaccinated during the 2006-2011 flu seasons.  They found that coverage rates rose from 44% in 2006, the first year with flu shot incentives, to 62.9% in 2007, after mobile carts and peer-to-peer vaccination efforts were implemented. In 2009, when the mandatory vaccination program -- which forced healthcare workers to wear masks if they didn't get their flu shots -- was implemented, coverage rates increased to 86.7%.
The following year, coverage rose to 91.9%, as the mandatory coverage policy included a clause about withholding budget allocations if vaccination wasn't completed."

"Only the addition of a mandatory vaccination policy enabled instantaneous gains in vaccination to levels above 90%," the researchers wrote.

They also found that "convenience was an essential factor in healthcare provider vaccination, even for those who had already decided to receive the vaccine" -- since 27.2% reported that they'd be unwilling to wait more than 10 minutes for a free flu shot."

"Also, 23.3% reported they would be indifferent if they couldn't get vaccinated. Huang and colleagues concluded that mandatory flu shot policies for healthcare workers have the potential to increase vaccination rates nationally and worldwide. However, they warned, approving such policies without enforcing them is unlikely to be successful."

 
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Original clinical study reports, which contain far more detail than published randomized trials, should be made available to independent researchers seeking to verify efficacy and safety claims.

In support of this argument, the history of the influenza antiviral oseltamivir (Tamiflu), which was approved by the FDA in 1999, was cited. The widespread belief in oseltamivir's efficacy, was based on a meta-analysis of 10 trials conducted by the manufacturer prior to licensure.  But the authors pointed out that the FDA, which was aware of these clinical trials, concluded that oseltamivir had not been shown to reduce complications and required a statement on the drug's label to that effect.  Moreover, oseltamivir was not given an FDA indication for prevention of spread of influenza.

To this, [authors] commented, "If FDA is right, the drug's effectiveness may be no better than aspirin or acetaminophen.'"

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