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Comment by inter_netuser | Hacker News Reader

You'd be surprised how many physicians and nurses refuse vaccination. You'll just never hear about it. AMA is one powerful beast, I wish I had a union like that.

However, sometimes fun little things like this happen that show their true colors:

"Starting in early 2003, the United States government started a program to vaccinate 500,000 volunteer health care professionals throughout the country. Recipients were healthcare workers who would be first-line responders in the event of a bioterrorist attack. Many healthcare workers refused, worried about vaccine side effects, and healthcare systems refused to participate. Fewer than 40,000 actually received the vaccine.[29]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine

over 90% refused.

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That doesn't mean distrust of vaccination in general - at least by doctors. It was for a potential bioterrorist attack. It perhaps more reflects the low likelihood or belief that there would be a small pox attack.

Meanwhile, 96% of physicians are vaccinated against COVID - https://www.ama-assn.org/press-center/press-releases/ama-sur...

If you assume the low likelyhood of the attack was the reason, that means 90% of those physicians could be lying. The stated reason for refusal was concerns about side effects. It's in the quote.

What you stated as a fact, 96% vaccination rate, is actually a self-reported survey.

Why do a survey when public health CDC records could simply be matched with the physician licensing registrars?

Seems an automatic search like that would save physicians their valuable time, aren't they very busy with a pandemic right now? Instead of hard data from CDC, we get self-reported, likely anonymous, self-reported survey.

What do they have to hide?

It's always cost-benefit. Relative risk of side effect directly relates to likelihood.

Risk of side effects vs benefit of vaccine.

I am not likely to take an HIV vaccine, since my personal chance of contracting HIV is incredibly low. So any side effect isn't "worth it" -- even a sore arm. But that doesn't mean I'm anti-vaccine.

I also don't wear a bullet proof vest around because it's too heavy ("side effect"). Does that mean I'm anti-bullet proof vest? No. But I would wear a bullet proof vest in a war zone -- even if it's heavy.

If there was a widespread small pox outbreak in the U.S., I'm certain more than 10% of physicians would take the vaccine. Does that mean they were lying before? No.

did you read my comment?

covid 96% status is from an anonymous survey.

Why not just get CDC to provide actual hard data? Surely they keep vaccination records?

Should vaccination status of physician, as verified by the CDC, be public data?

Because even if I did point to official stats, you would say they are just lying?

A few months prior to the AMA survey, Long Term Care Facilities reported a 75% vaccination rate amongst physicians at their facilities. So presumably higher now.

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7030a2.htm

The stated reason for refusal was concerns about side effects.

As another comment already mentioned, smallpox vaccines (at least historically) tended to have undesirable side effects, like permanent scars. Smallpox vaccination is probably not a good proxy for vaccination overall. It's not worth getting vaccinated for smallpox unless you expect a decent risk of exposure.

What do they have to hide?

Privacy should be the default.

they have a monopoly license, these things come with strings.

Do you want to go to anti-vaxx doctor?

The smallpox vaccine has a non-trivial amount of danger and the only smallpox in the world is guarded very closely.

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