The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town

by Brian Alexander

The resistance Ennen met when advocating for all employees to get flu shots wasn’t only the result of false beliefs like “the flu shot will give you the flu,” a common one in the county. The county commissioners didn’t require EMS crews to get flu shots because they didn’t think government should tell people they had to get vaccines. In the ER one day, Marv Stalter asked a young single mother who worked at Menards and who relied on Medicaid if her small child was up to date on his vaccinations, and she made it clear she didn’t trust pronouncements from the government. “Oh, we do not vaccinate,” she said. Stalter made a short sound of concern with the intake of his breath, then launched into the same litany he preached to every such young parent—about polio and iron lungs and lives saved—but he knew not to bother being too insistent. When Jan David spoke to a neighbor about the importance of getting a flu shot, the neighbor replied, “That’s from the government. You don’t know what they’ll put in it.” A hospital employee filled out the required statement explaining why she refused to be vaccinated: “Religion is Pentecostal. Obamacare is putting a ‘chip’ in the flu shot to track people’s whereabouts for the ‘666.’ Not going to take the ‘devil’s shot.’ Took it last year but felt forced into it. Husband was very upset. This is already happening in Wyoming and other countries.” The employee was apparently referring to an anti-Obama conspiracy theory about radio-frequency identif...