For IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Bush Administration's Inadequate Pandemic Flu Plan Puts Health Workers, First Responders & Nation at Risk
WASHINGTON — With up to 35 percent of Americans likely to contract a potentially lethal disease in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak, AFSCME and several other labor unions petitioned the Bush administration today, demanding real protections for 15 million health care workers and first responders — our nation's first line of defense in this national health emergency.
"Hurricane Katrina exposed the devastation and misery that is created when our government is unprepared for and does not adequately respond to a major disaster," said AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee "This administration has proposed a pandemic flu plan that would leave health workers, first responders and all Americans woefully unprotected."
On November 2, 2005, the Bush administration released the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Pandemic Influenza Plan. While the Plan appropriately recognizes the importance of vaccine development, it fails to protect health care workers and first responders, for example, by ignoring the serious potential for airborne transmission of the disease.
"The president's plan dismisses the devastating potential for airborne transmission of pandemic influenza," McEntee said. "Its only answer, calling on employers to stockpile surgical masks for health care workers, is akin to sending soldiers to Iraq with a BB gun instead of a firearm."
Specifically, the plan fails to protect heath workers and first responders by:
- Calling for voluntary guidance instead of mandatory requirements: The plan's anemic worker protection recommendations are strictly voluntary, which means employers can choose to ignore them, or follow them selectively. Failure to establish comprehensive and effective mandatory requirements will place not only health workers but the health of our nation in great jeopardy.
- Providing insufficient guidance on respiratory protections: The plan's recommendation of surgical masks rather than respirators to protect health care workers is not only grossly inadequate but contradicts the existing guidance of other federal health agencies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have recommended fitted respirators. Surgical masks are not respirators. Respirators are fitted to each worker and can filter out contaminants from the air. Surgical masks can't achieve a tight seal against the skin nor capture respirable airborne droplets that contain the pandemic flu virus.
- Downgrading previous health standards: The CDC's main website for pandemic flu features the HHS Pandemic Flu Plan's weak recommendations for protecting workers, including advice to use a surgical mask. The CDC's more protective guidance for avian flu issued in May 2004, which recommends the use of respirators, is still available but only if the website visitor knows exactly where to find it. Incredibly, shortly after the HHS plan was released, the World Health Organization released a "Clarification," which downgraded its recommended respiratory protection for pandemic flu from respirators to surgical masks.
- Lacking a comprehensive exposure control plan: The plan fails to require worker training, communication of hazards to employees, medical surveillance and recordkeeping, all of which are typically contained in OSHA workplace standards, i.e., Bloodborne Pathogens.
AFSCME's petition for an OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness calls on the Bush administration to:
- Require each workplace to develop a pandemic flu exposure plan that determines potential exposure and addresses medical surveillance needs, communications of hazards, training, vaccinations and recordkeeping.
- Require employers to provide comprehensive protections to health care workers, emergency responders and other essential personnel at high risk of occupational exposure to pandemic influenza.
- Make mandatory the use of ventilation, portable high-efficiency air (HEPA) filtration units, and other controls to reduce the amount of infectious particles workers are exposed to mandatory.
- Mandate employers to limit employees' exposure to infectious agents by delaying elective high-hazard procedures or surgery until an individual is deemed not infectious, and reducing the number of workers who need to enter patient rooms.
- Require medical removal protection so infected workers won't suffer loss of pay, benefits or other rights for the duration of their illness.
Other petition signatories are: American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Communications Workers of America (CWA), United American Nurses (UAN), and United Steelworkers (USA).
- Text of Petition for an OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard for Pandemic Influenza Preparedness