Politics on the Hudson

   A Poughkeepsie nurse who is suing Dr. Richard Daines, state health commissioner, over the H1N1 vaccine is also a plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Department of Health and Human Services.

   Suzanne Field of LaGrange, Dutchess County, is one of eight plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit, which alleges that the H1N1 vaccine was approved “without definitive prerequisite safety testing, in clear violation of Federal Law.” New York is mandating that most health-care workers get the H1N1 vaccine by Nov. 30. Field had a documented reaction to a flu vaccine in 2007, but Vassar Brothers Medical Center in Poughkeepsie, where she works, will not give her an exemption, according to court papers.

   On the state level, Field filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court that seeks to have New York’s mandate on health-care workers overturned. In the past, the state has recommended that health-care workers get seasonal flu shots. With the outbreak of H1N1 flu this year, they are required to get both the seasonal flu and H1N1 flu vaccines by Nov. 30.

   The plaintiffs in the federal case are asking for the court  to reverse approvals of licensing and use of the vaccines “until there has been adequate safety testing and a full opportunity for public hearings,” the lawsuit said.

   Cherryl Robbins, a patient-care technician from Staatsburg, Dutchess County, is another plaintiff in the federal lawsuit. Robbins, 33, is pregnant with her first child and, like Field, does not want to be vaccinated. The other plaintiffs include Mary Kuchman, a billing specialist at Highland Hospital in Rochester; Gary Null, a licensed dietitian, nutritionist and health-care worker who is required to get the vaccine to see clients in hospitals; Dr. Rima Laibow, who also falls under the mandate; and Heather Walker, a Maria College, Albany, student who will not be able to continue her occupational therapy assistant classes without the vaccine.

   Null said he “can’t find any of the science to support” the requirement that health-care workers get the vaccine.

   Leslie Fourton, an attorney in the federal lawsuit, said the FDA approved the H1N1 vaccine as a “change of strain” vaccine, similar to what happens each year with seasonal influenza shots. But, he said, since H1N1 is a “novel” virus, it should have undergone more testing.

   The Web site www.flu.gov states that the government expects the H1N1 vaccine to “have a similar safety profile as seasonal flu vaccines, which have a very good safety track record.” Hundreds of millions of Americans have received seasonal flu vaccines over the years. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FDA are closely monitoring the vaccine for ”unexpected adverse events,” the Web site says. 

   In New York, Daines has said the vaccines are safe. After a recent rally by vaccine protesters in Albany a few weeks ago, he said that they were trying to “pump air into a completely deflated argument about vaccine safety.”

   Natural Solutions Foundation, which promotes natural solutions to health problems, and the Foundation for Health Choice, which advocates for making choices without government interference, are also listed as plaintiffs in the federal suit.

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