Flu clinics may draw anti-vaccine protesters

Similar events scheduled in Norwich, Pawcatuck drawing concerns

After a handful of anti-vaccination demonstrators disrupted a flu vaccine clinic in Plainfield on Oct. 1, local health district officials are watching for the same group to appear at similar events in Norwich and Pawcatuck this month.

A group of four people was on scene at Plainfield High School, where volunteers were administering free doses of Flucelvax, a vaccine designed to protect against four different influenza viruses.

The group tried to hand out fliers to people attending the clinic, warning them of several unsubstantiated risks of getting a flu vaccine, said Sue Dubb, a public health nurse with the Uncas Health District.

The group also blocked the doors at Plainfield High School and refused to move until clinic workers called the police, delaying the opening of the clinic, she said.

The warnings on the flier either don’t apply to the Flucelvax vaccine — one portion about the risk of organ damage references a preservative not found in Flucelvax — or have been drawn from inconclusive studies, Dubb said.

She said she doesn’t know who the demonstrators were or where they were from, though the group’s fliers referenced an anti-vaccination website, www.learntherisk.org. The Council for Vaccine Safety is based in Santa Barbara, Calif., and was founded by Brandy Vaughan, a former pharmaceutical representative.

Attempts to reach those handing out the fliers or an official at Learn the Risk were unsuccessful as of print deadline Friday night.

The flu vaccine is safe, Dubb said, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that everyone over the age of 6 months get a flu shot every year.

Officials at the Uncas Health District, which serves as the public health department for residents of Bozrah, Montville, Norwich, Salem, Sprague, Griswold, Lebanon, Lisbon and Voluntown, have scheduled their third annual flu vaccine drive-thru clinic for noon to 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the Rose City Senior Center, 8 Mahan Drive, Norwich.

Dubb said she has alerted police that the anti-vaccination demonstrators may cause disruption, though she said she’s hopeful they won’t. Because the clinic allows people to stay in their cars and receive the vaccine as they drive through the senior center’s parking lot, any demonstrators will not be allowed on the senior center property, she said.

“But there’s nothing saying they can’t stand on the corner,” she said.

The group didn’t dissuade any people seeking vaccines in Plainfield from getting one on Oct. 1, she said.

“Thankfully, none of them were influenced by this misinformation,” she said.

Kristin Magnussen, who runs the Ledge Light Health District’s flu clinic, said she is aware of the possibility of demonstrators and plans to speak to Stonington police in advance of the Oct. 22 drive-thru clinic in Pawcatuck.

Both health districts have more than 100 flu vaccine doses to distribute for free, and plan to use their drive-thru flu clinics as a test of their emergency preparedness operations. They will be timing their distribution of empty pill bottles that mimic the antibiotics they would distribute in case of a large-scale biological attack, Magnussen said.

Magnussen, who said Ledge Light has run five of the annual free drive-thru clinics, said she respects the demonstrators’ right to distribute fliers and doesn’t plan on trying to convince them that vaccines are safe.

“If people are passionate about something, it’s very hard to change their minds,” she said.