Evil Vaccines

When a patient is admitted to the hospital, a nurse has to fill out an admission profile.  The profile consists of about 1,093 questions.   "Are you sexually active?  With men, women or both?  Do you use a condom?" 

These queries sometimes become awkward when the patient is a deaf old lady with periwinkle hair.  "DO YOU PRACTICE ANAL INTERCOURSE?!?"

A visiting doctor from Ethiopia looks up from the desk.

There's a section in the profile on vaccinations. "Is patient current on vaccinations?  Does patient want influenza/pneumoccocal vaccine this hospital stay?"

I'm tempted to paraphrase this question:  "Hey, do you want our most recent version of the medical miracle that has saved millions of human lives?  Are you a history buff?  Smallpox wiped out one-third of the exposed population!  I'm not shittin' you!  Whatcha think?"

This should come as a shocker to anyone who has not been lobotomized, but patients often reply, "No!  Vaccines cause autism in our vulnerable children!  My neighbor Sunlight DoNutHole never had a vaccination in her life!  She is 68, smokes pot every day and feels just fine!  Take it awaaaaaaaaaaaay!  Take it awaaaaaaaaaaaay!!"

I never argue.  This is a battle I'm not gonna win.  The public is super-saturated with celebrities on talk shows sobbing about how their precious child was damaged by an evil vaccine.  They need to blame SOMETHING.   

And the public listens.  We are attracted to attractive people.  Blonde actors with capped teeth and trained voices have plenty of credibility.  It's tough for some geeky-looking scientist to come on TV and compete with a professional entertainer.  But, does Jenny McCarthy really know more about immunology than the doctors at NIH, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic? 


So, who ya gonna believe?

Or...

The odds of changing people's minds are poor when there is such a huge emotional investment.  To convince them, I would have to confront their fear and guilt.  What if they become angry?  What if they complain to my nurse manager?   

Besides, I can hear call lights going off, I need to draw a PTT in ten minutes and that art line waveform looks dampened...

So, I just smile and click on, "Patient Declined" and move right on to the next screen.

The world is overpopulated.  You don't want our vaccines?  Are the bad nurses threatening you with needles?

This is natural selection at work.