NURSES: NO TO SMALLPOX SHOTS

NURSES: NO TO SMALLPOX SHOTS
Nurses and hospital workers in Atlanta, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts are refusing to go along with the Bush Administration's plan to vaccinate health care professionals for smallpox.
In the Bay State, the 20,000-member Massachusetts Nurses Association is telling its members not to volunteer for smallpox shots, the Boston Globe says. Rhode Island's two largest health care unions are making the same plea.
In Atlanta, five out of the city's seven trauma centers won't ask their staffs to participate in the inoculation program, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"Absent the clear threat of an attack, they cannot ask their staff(s) to risk taking a vaccine with severe side effects," the paper reports. "Major urban and university hospitals in California, Colorado, Minnesota, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia" are also resisting Bush's smallpox edict. (via Global Security Newswire)