Efforts to reach persons who try to evade vaccine mandates--with compassion

The vast majority of the Conway, Ark., hospital group’s 1,800 employees were voluntarily vaccinated earlier this year. But Troup also got 45 requests for religious exemptions and had to disentangle the genuine conscientious objectors from those looking for a proverbial fig leaf.

“It has been ugly, ugly, ugly,” Troup says. “I’ve been compared to Hitler, been called a moron.”

Now that the FDA has fully approved the Pfizer coronavirus shot, vaccination has swiftly become a requirement for companies, universities and even the military. Meanwhile, just over 1 in 10 Americans “definitely” does not plan to get vaccinated, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted in September.

The clashes are inevitable: When faced with the choice between getting vaccinated and giving up their jobs or enrollments, many Americans have sought loopholes or ways to claim exemptions they don’t in good faith qualify for. People such as Troup have wound up with the unenviable job of stopping them — which can be awkward and logistically nightmarish, and it can get confrontational fast.

Almost all of Troup’s applicants for religious exemptions objected to taking a vaccine developed using fetal cell lines (whose origins can be traced back to cells from electively aborted fetuses several decades ago).

So Troup and his team devised a strategy: Those employees would have to sign an agreement not to take any other medical treatments developed using fetal cell lines. Among the 28 medications on the list: Tylenol. Motrin. Preparation H. Claritin. Benadryl. Tums. ...

I have learned to be careful. I’ve learned compassion throughout this exercise, maybe in a bigger way than I ever have,” Troup adds. “We have to give people some space and we have to respect people’s concern, because this individual, they were really afraid.”  ...