By Jane LaTour

Public Health Nurse JoAnn Deshazo volunteered for the smallpox vaccination program in New York City. On Feb. 27, she reported to the Chelsea Dept. of Health clinic and received the shot. She was the first nurse to do so — joining what Local 436 Vice President Judith Arroyo calls “the other blue wall of safety around the City of New York.”

JoAnn Deshazo is emblematic of the members of Public Health Nurses and Epidemiologists Local 436. In 1997, she was part of the team that vaccinated school children against Hepatitis B. She worked at Ground Zero and answered the call when anthrax struck. “This is what we do — we’re Public Health Nurses,” she said.

As a District Council 37 member, Ms. Deshazo has a vigilant team of experts protecting her own health. The vaccine can have serious side effects, and many issues surrounding the national effort to immunize first responders remain unresolved. The question of compensation in the case of death or illness has been on the top of the list for unions who represent public health workers.

Shortly after the national program was announced in December, with the target of inoculating 500,000 health care workers and another 10 million first responders, unions started raising serious issues with the architects of the program — the U. S. Centers for Disease Control — and local agencies, such as the city Dept. of Health.

To press the concerns of the front line workers, DC 37’s Safety and Health Dept. organized a citywide task force of unions. The task force, with the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, organized an educational conference, “Volunteering for a Smallpox Response Team: What Workers Need to Know to make an Informed Decision.”

The March 8 conference drew a large crowd of participants and featured expert panelists and question-and-answer sessions. The conference included exceptionally informative slide presentations on the vaccine, the current threat, and the CDC’s Smallpox Preparedness Plan.

Arthur Wilcox, director of the Public Employee Dept. of the New York State AFL-CIO, spoke bluntly about the many unresolved issues. “Why are you here on a Saturday, on your own time? I apologize that your employers didn’t address these questions in the workplace, Monday through Friday, 9-5. The unions are not going to be treated like mushrooms — We’re not going to be kept in the dark and fed bullshit.”

Speakers, including Lee Clarke, director of the DC 37 Safety and Health Dept., and James August, of DC 37’s parent union, AFSCME, itemized the issues facing workers who confront the choice and the risks associated with participation in the vaccination program.

“Adverse reactions” include three deaths
Health officials had estimated that smallpox vaccinations would lead to an adverse reaction in one in 1,000 recipients and 1 or 2 deaths in 1 million. With only 26,000 vaccinations administered nationally, the death of three vaccine recipients from heart attacks in March has put brakes on the program. “The fatalities demonstrate our original contention that the city and the Feds just rushed into this program,” said Lee Clarke.

On April 2, DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts wrote to DOH Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden, urging him to suspend the program. She wrote: “The Dept. of Health should follow the prudent actions of the New York State Health Dept. and eight other states, by suspending the city’s program until there has been a full investigation of the possible links between the smallpox vaccine and cardiac problems, as well as other risks. It is the city’s obligation to protect the health of DC 37 members and others who have valiantly stepped forward as front line defenders of the public’s health.”