The New York State Health Department “is requiring tens of thousands of health care workers across the state to be vaccinated for flu, amid fears that swine flu will return in the fall.” The new regulation “affects workers at hospitals, in home health care agencies and in hospice care, but, because of a technicality in state law, not in nursing homes.” The regulation raised protest Tuesday from New York’s largest health care union, 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East, whose president, George Gresham, said that the policy was “completely unprecedented” and could become punitive if the religious or cultural beliefs of workers prevented them from being vaccinated. Mr. Gresham commented, “Health care workers on the front lines of providing care deserve the dignity and respect of thoughtful consideration before a regulation like this can just be rushed through and put into effect,”. The new regulation requires vaccination against seasonal flu and the H1N1 virus, and would affect workers and volunteers who come into direct contact with patients, including nurses, doctors and aides, and even nonmedical staff members like food service workers if they enter a patient’s room, a Health Department spokeswoman said.

(NY Times, 18 August 2009) http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/19/health/policy/19swine.html?_r=1