Fw: NEARLY 60% OF HEALTH CARE WORKERS SKIP FLUE SHOT: WHAT IS IT THEY KNOW THAT WE DON’T KNOW?

DES MOINES — Operating room nurse Pauline Taylor knows her refusal to get a flu shot is based on faulty logic.

But ever since she got sick after getting a shot a few years ago, she’s sworn off the vaccine.

“I rarely get sick. The only thing I could narrow it down to is that I had gotten this shot,” said Taylor, who works at University Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. “I know that it’s not a live virus. It just seemed pretty coincidental.”

Such stories frustrate Dr. William Schaffner.

As chairman of the Department of Preventive Medicine at Vanderbilt University, he hears that kind of talk frequently and knows it’s in part to blame for a surprising statistic — nearly 60% of health care workers fail to get a flu shot.