A new study questions whether mandatory flu vaccines for healthcare workers is a good idea, reports Stat News.

The study, published Friday in PLOS One, concludes that the research used to justify mandatory flu shots for health sector workers is flawed, and that the policies cannot plausibly produce the benefits that had widely been assumed.

That is not to say that the group of epidemiologists from Canada, Australia, and France behind the new research opposes the flu vaccine.

“I take it myself,” lead author Dr Gaston De Serres said. “The reason why I do that is I continue to have the impression that it could work. But it’s one thing to say: ‘OK, on a voluntary basis, you get the vaccine despite all its weaknesses,’ and it’s another thing to say, ‘If you don’t get it, you get fired.’”

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