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Iraq. Saddam Hussein. Possible war. Chemical weapons.
Biological weapons. Troop deployments. Terrorism threats.
Smallpox vaccinations. If these aren't on the tips of
nurses' tongues, they're certainly in the back of their
minds.
It's a lot to grasp, but an adage says that many hands
make light work. And what hands are better-or more sure-than
those of nurses? From civilian hospitals to the military
and academic institutions, here are seven RNs, each
with a perspective on Iraq, the possibility of a U.S.-led
war and other issues.
The nurses range from a civilian emergency room staffer
in South Carolina to a Navy director of nursing services
in San Diego. A psychiatric nurse addresses anxiety.
There is a Muslim doctoral candidate and a retired RN
who participated in a New York Times opinion poll. Two
nurses have been to Iraq, one as an adviser to the World
Health Organization and United Nations Children's Fund,
the other as a teacher at the University of Baghdad
School of Medicine; both are experts on the effects
of U.N. economic sanctions imposed after the 1991 Gulf
War to undermine Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Diane Robbins, RN, is a 44-year-old emergency room
nurse working third shift at Chester (S.C.) County Hospital,
about an hour from the Army's Fort Jackson in Columbia,
S.C.
Preparation for a war against Iraq, as well as the
possibility of a terrorist attack involving chemical
or biological agents on U.S. soil, is all you hear on
television and in the news, Robbins said, but any threat
is going to have to be a little more real, a little
more concrete, before she does one thing the federal
Department of Homeland Security is asking.
As an emergency room caregiver, Robbins is among the
first tier of Americans who are eligible and encouraged
to receive a smallpox vaccination.
"I'm not going to," she said. "I had
the vaccination as a child. At 6 or 7 years old, I was
told what to do. You get into the line and you take
your shot. You didn't have any concept of what was going
on."
She does now, though, and after considerable Internet
research, Robbins said the risk of complications from
the vaccine do not outweigh her risk of exposure today.
"In the beginning, I was thinking, 'Yeah, I'm going
to be ready to go help other people and all of that.'
And then, the more I saw the side effects, the more
I realized it's not really a necessary thing-yet,"
Robbins said.
She did extensive research at the CDC Web site [www.cdc.gov]
and elsewhere in reaching her decision. Although the
centers say that life-threatening complications from
the vaccine are rare-1.1 deaths per 1 million vaccinations
in first-time recipients-Robbins said there are lesser,
undesirable side effects.
Some people experience soreness at the injection site,
lymph nodes may temporarily swell and low fever is possible
for a few days. The CDC says one in three people may
become ill enough to miss work. One in 5,000 may develop
a toxic or allergic rash or the more serious eczema
vaccinatum, a rash on the recipient that-through contact-may
be passed to others.
"I decided the risks of getting sick or making
my family sick are greater than the need for me to take
it right now," Robbins said. "I may never
have to have it. If I do, then it'll be a must and I
can get it when I have to."
Capt. Jennifer Town, MSN, RN, is director of nursing
services at the Naval Medical Center San Diego.
Thirty-two of Town's nurses were vaccinated against
smallpox before deployment to the Persian Gulf. The
RNs-ward nurses, emergency and critical care specialists
and nurse anesthetists-are assigned to a Marine surgical
company and as support for the fleet hospital at Bremerton,
Wash., she said.
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