Companies May See Rise in Absences This Winter
The national flu vaccine shortage has companies bracing for a surge in costly sick days and lost productivity.
Last week’s closure of Chiron Corp.’s factory by British regulators, which cut the U.S. supply of flu shots nearly in half, prompted federal officials to ask healthy Americans to skip being immunized this year in favor of the elderly, young children and those at the greatest risk of complications if they catch the flu.
As a result, many companies, including ChevronTexaco Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co., have canceled annual flu clinics for employees. Others have revised their vaccine policies to reflect voluntary federal guidelines. Sempra Energy and Blue Cross of California, one of the nation’s biggest health insurers, have asked employees who don’t fall into high-risk categories to forgo receiving flu shots at company-sponsored clinics.
Between 10% and 20% of the U.S. population catches the flu during an average season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. With fewer workers receiving flu shots, more of them are likely to contract the disease and take sick leave.
“Most of the employers we work with realize they will have more absenteeism,” said Kathleen Strukoff, vice president of human resources for Aon Consulting.
A 2004 study by the Society for Human Resource Management reported that 60% of companies surveyed offered flu vaccinations to workers. By one estimate, the shots cost employers $20 to $25 apiece.
Companies offer the vaccine programs under the assumption that they pay for themselves by reducing sick days and lost productivity. Research seems to support that, with some caveats.
A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found vaccinating against the flu provides substantial benefits for healthy, working adults. Those who had been vaccinated as part of the study reported 43% fewer sick days and 44% fewer doctor visits as a result of upper-respiratory illnesses.
However, a more recent study funded by the CDC’s National Center for Infectious Diseases, warned that vaccinating healthy adult workers under 65 may not always save employers money. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., concluded that vaccinations can reduce lost workdays and doctor visits but only when the vaccine and circulating virus are similar.
“The degree of benefit can vary substantially from year-to-year based on how severe the influenza season is ... and how well the vaccine is matched to the circulating virus,” said Carolyn Buxton Bridges, a medical epidemiologist in the National Immunization Program at the CDC.
Most companies say it’s too soon to tell whether the vaccine shortage will result in a rise in absenteeism because they don’t know how bad the flu season will be.
So far there are no indicators to suggest a severe flu season, said Greg Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group. “There have only been some very small, scattered outbreaks.”
But the situation could quickly change, Poland warned, noting that 80% of influenza outbreaks in the U.S. occur in January or later.
Many companies that count on flu shots to protect workers use vendors such as Maxim Health Systems, which had planned to hold 7,000 to 10,000 flu-shot clinics at corporations, nursing homes and assisted living centers nationwide.
Maxim had anticipated purchasing more than 2 million flu vaccine doses from French drug maker Aventis Pasteur, but has so far received less than half that amount, said Steve Wright, Maxim’s national director of wellness services, and it has postponed corporate clinics, with the likelihood they will be canceled.
ChevronTexaco notified employees this week that flu-vaccination clinics scheduled for Oct. 26 in Concord, Calif., and San Ramon, Calif., had been canceled so that vaccines could be diverted to the CDC’s priority list, a company spokeswoman said. Last year about 1,100 employees at the company received flu shots.
Of several companies surveyed by The Times, only El Segundo-based Unocal Corp. said it planned to go ahead with its annual vaccination program, anticipating that nearly 60 workers -- a little less than half of the corporate staff -- would receive shots. The company changed its policy Thursday to allow employees to donate their flu shot to a family member or friend who falls into high-risk categories.
“The company we use limited us to exactly what we had last year,” said Barry Lane, a Unocal spokesman.
Some companies are substituting flu vaccines with common-sense advice.
“As low-tech as it is, we’ve been emphasizing hand washing and covering your mouth when you cough,” said Sharon Baldwin, a spokeswoman for General Motors Corp., which like many U.S. companies didn’t receive the flu vaccine doses it ordered this year.
Experts also are urging employers to encourage sick workers to stay home so as not to infect the entire office.
The risk of spreading disease is heightened in companies where workers do not receive paid sick leave or have a limited number of sick days.
“There is that sense that people who fight through the pain and come into work are supporting the cause and are to be celebrated,” said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., a Chicago-based global outplacement firm. But sick people should stay home, he said. “It’s a lot better to lose one person than 28.”
