H1N1 flu outbreak: health professionals refuse the vaccine

India is part of another global phenomenon: otherwise-rational healthcare professionals remain unvaccinated despite several H1N1 outbreaks in India over the past three years. This Times of India story asks some of them why and quotes Dr Elango (the very respected former Director of Public Health in Tamil Nadu) as saying that unprotected hospital workers could “prove deadly”. In the most frivolous response yet to the outbreak, pig farmers asked the Madras High Court to order the government not to refer to H1N1 as “swine flu” since it was harming pork production. Justice K Chandru told them that they should ” carry out their own propaganda if they want to give their business a boost.”