Benjamin Franklin first coined the phrase, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” in 1736. He spoke those words as he organized Philadelphia’s Union Fire Company, the first in the city. We often think of the phrase in terms of disease mitigation, but he was interested in the danger fire represented.  It is unknown how many lives he saved by the formation of this fire company. However, if he had the foresight to apply his saying to the spread of influenza, some portion of 11,000 deaths in the City of Philadelphia during October 1918 might have been spared.  Philadelphia had the most deaths in the entire country.

So where am I going with this? Simple. If an ounce of prevention is worth a cure, and influenza is a preventable illness — causing an estimated 36,000 fatalities in the United States annually — why don’t more people get the seasonal flu shot?  Specifically, why aren’t health-care workers getting seasonal flu shots? The general public might be unaware of the dangers influenza poses, the tremendous economic impact annually due to employee absenteeism and the spreading of disease through presentee-ism (people showing up to work ill, exposing others), but health-care workers don’t have that excuse. Health-care workers should lead the charge in demonstrating the benefits of illness prevention. Otherwise, they could become carriers of illness to hospital patients who are already in a compromised condition.

So I am curious, what is the feeling out there regarding the pros and cons of having mandatory vaccination for health-care workers in patient contact positions?  Here is an interesting study in Seattle.