Company required vaccination

Professional Mariner Forum
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Just curious how many maritime companies have made vaccination required for Mariners?

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My company has.

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I see openings coming from those who don’t want the shot

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It’s kinda like schools in the USA. Most require vaccines before entry, polio, whooping cough, measles etc. Maritime? I worked at sea for over 40 years, civilian and military billets. All required vaccinations, the vaccination required depended on the area you were working in.

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When it comes to the variety of drugs (not quantity) Ozzy Osborne has nothing on me. My second yellow international shot record book is about full. I didn’t get my local health department to put my Covid19 shots in it but when I get back home I plan go back & try because some countries don’t care about the CDC covid19 vaccine card but respect the 2ft long yellow book. I think some clients with representatives on board will require vessels crew to get vaccinated before some companies officially require it. Then companies will let employees choose if they want to go back to certain ships or not. I worked for clients who required all types of silly vaccines including the Anthrax vaccine that I managed to skip thank goodness. I’m fine with the covid19 vax but really don’t want the Anthrax vax. I hope that never gets in fashion again.

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Not my company but one of our biggest clients is probably going to mandate it so the hands played. Gotta say I can’t wait, tired of listening to the whack vaccine conspiracy theories from half of my fellow crew…

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Hi Everyone,

A few of you have asked my opinion on boosters:

Short answer: YES boost everyone, including yourselves.

First of all, this is really no different than any other ‘blind’ vaccination program—why do we give tetanus boosters every 10 years? Because a reasonable number of our population’s antibodies have waned, and it is not cost effective to check everyone’ Tetanus IgG titer and decide. In reality of course, some people needed a booster 6 years prior, and some may never need it. The ones that never need it are the ones who report “that tetanus shot made me sick”—sick how? Felt bad, arm swelled up for days- warm/ indurated, flu-like, low grade fever, possibly chills, LAD, etc. This is an Arthus reaction—IgG binding antigen leading to complement activation and all the signs that a person is infected…but they aren’t of course. They need Advil, sometimes PDN x 3-4 days, Medrol dose pack, and reassurance that their immunity is “robust”. This can happen with any vaccine, but really never with the first vaccine series < 2 YO. Can certainly happen with Prevnar/ Pneumovax. Make a note of it when they are “due” and either check titers to show immunity or whatever.

So with Covid, there are issues: 1 this is all new and we don’t know how “effective” these vaccines are long term—we don’t have the studies. 2 there are a group of people who had bona fide Covid infection and have some degree of immunity; 3 the lab tests for Covid immunity are hard to understand…what does it mean “>250” is 100 or 179 okay or what?? And also, remember, most people get some nice help from cytotoxic T cell activation, which can’t be ordered. (BTW the patients most at risk IMO—people with low lymphs (steroids, organ-rejection meds), senescent lymphs (elderly)). Most “regular healthy kids (>5 YO) and adults” will respond nicely to the two Covid vaccines, with both T cell activation and antibody response. If patients get the shots, and maybe a booster, and “felt nothing at all”, I would wonder about their immunity and consider checking their titer.

Ideas:

No significant response to 2 vaccines: Boost about 6 months post vax.

Bad response to the first vaccine (most of these peeps had the real Covid infection): Check Covid titer 6-8 months later; if robust, recheck every 6 months

Mild response after 2nd vax: Get Booster, consider PDN 40mg day before and day of shot

Severe response after 2nd vax: Check Covid titer 6-8 months later; if robust, recheck every 6 months

My bias would be to alternate vaccine types between Moderna and Pfizer

I would not recommend a JNJ vaccine to any female between 12 and 65; esp ones on hormones or prior DVT/PTE

If a person has had a JNJ vaccine, I would swith over to Moderna for booster

Remind pts it is “healthy / normal / sign of a good immune system” to feel not great for several hours or days after booster—“your body is recognizing the virus and learning to fight it better”.

You can always check a titer and have more info, but we really don’t know what a “good” titer is or isn’t…at least I don’t.

Make no mistake—more reactions are going to happen—I expect prob 50% of people will have a significantly uncomfortable reaction starting within several hours. The better someone’s immune system, the sooner and possibly longer it will last. Treat them with steroids (PDN 40 x 3d, or 40 x 3d, 20 x 3d) + NSAIDS. There will be some odd reactions—but people are alive to talk about them. Patients must understand, we are trying to do the best we can with limited current information. At the end of the day, people have two choices: take your chances with the vaccine or take your chances with the virus.

The most telling recent statistic to me was from two days ago—a local hospitalist said “ we have 340 pts hospitalized with covid—300 were non or undervaccinated; 40 were vaccinated”. So vaccination is not foolproof—we need to give our immune systems every chance to fight this thing. (Now I would be willing to wager that many of the 40 did not have good immunity; ie, they were on prednisone, elderly, etc etc).

Given my own history of a mild reaction post-second Pfizer shot, I will go get a Moderna shot. I will take PDN 20mg the day before and the day of, probably take Advil the day of and the day after, probably get it on a Friday. Be good to go Monday.

Also copying my partners to weigh in as they see fit.

Hope this helps. Chuck

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That’s a reasonable program for a +65 year old or +50 year old in poor health to do for the rest of their lives when the alternative is a good risk of hospitalization or death.

But is it really reasonable or moral to ask an otherwise healthy 20 year old to do so?

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A really interesting post. Many thanks.

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That person he quoted is a quack.

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I wasn’t really asking advice on whether to take the vaccine or not just wondering if maritime companies were requiring it. That being said who is Chuck and why should anyone listen to his advice? Not a lot of context to that post.

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Only two people have responded to leadsled’s question directly. What gives? Is it a secret or something?

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Military Sea-prison Command has yet to mandate vaccines but will as soon as it’s fully FDA approved. That could happen tomorrow 23 August.

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Yes

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Actually this is an inter-office memo from a noted immunologist at a major hospital group to his staff.

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Sadly, not according to some of the keyboard COVID medical “experts” awash on social media.

I found this information interesting and did some research on personal titer. Makes sense.

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My experience is with maritime companies that work out of the USA. I don’t know of any that do not require vaccines. You either get the vaccines are you don’t get the job. Yellow fever, typhoid, cholera, Covid or whatever you accept the vaccine or you don’t get the job, There are good reasons for this policy. A more relevant question might be, :which companies let you opt out of being vaccinated?

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I think you misunderstand the question because you are trying to split hairs. I’m not asking if anyone agrees or disagrees or what your opinion on the vaccine is or if your past experience with yellow fever or whatever. I asked if your company requires it… I know of some that have and some that haven’t. I’m just curious if the majority have. Some companies that don’t work foreign don’t require any of those vaccines that you mentioned. Not all Mariners sail worldwide so it’s a relevant question even if it’s not relevant to your particular experience.

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Nope. Not trying to split hairs your question was. “Just curious how many maritime companies have made vaccination required for Mariners?”
You asked, I answered.

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You answered with a statement from a guy named Chuck with no context on who he was and didn’t say “the company I work for requires the vaccine”. You said I should have asked a different question which would have given me the same answer… if I said how many companies don’t require the vaccine wouldn’t that tell me if the majority have? It’s just being argumentative for no reason. It’s cool though. You made your point or whatever. Not the point of the question but your point.

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