-Caveat Lector-
forwarded
Dave Hartley
http://www.Asheville-Computer.com
http://www.ioa.com/~davehart
SOLDIERS FOR THE TRUTH
NEWSLETTER AUGUST 2, 1999
DEFENSE DEPARTMENT FACES HUGE PROBLEM OVER ANTHRAX VACCINATIONS
Edited by Bill Rogers
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The controversy over the safety of anthrax vaccinations ordered by the
Defense Department for all service members is heating up as more and more
people either refuse to take their shots or quit the service. Anthrax is
considered a major biological warfare threat. So far about 330,000 of the
2,500,000 people in uniform have received at least the first of six shots.
But anthrax shots are becoming a serious morale and readiness problem, to
say nothing of a health problem.
CBS News interviewed more than 100 Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard
pilots and reported on July 26 so many pilots are quitting over this issue
that there are "huge holes in some military air units." Key units stand to
lose up to half their pilots, and at just five bases more than 100 reserve
pilots quit this year, CBS said.
"The squadron is unable to do its peacetime and wartime mission, and this
directly impacts the nation's readiness," Maj. Ramona Savoie declared. She
is one who quit. The recent campaign in the Balkans demonstrates the need
for Reserve and Guard forces whenever the Air Force makes any substantial
effort, so the loss of many experienced pilots will have a serious impact on
readiness of U.S. forces.
The Defense Department insists that the vaccine is safe and effective and
that the program is going smoothly, but memos obtained by CBS tell a
different story. One squadron commander wrote, "Due to the controversy
regarding the shots, compliance has been very low." Another commander
acknowledged that "We are losing a lot of experience."
Many Guard and Reserve pilots also fly for the airlines, and some have quit
for fear that side effects of the shots would put their civilian flying
career at risk -- or their passengers. "Would you want your pilot to have
any problem with remembering, and tremors, seizures? This is all stuff
that's attributed to the vaccine," Mike Angerole said. He flies for
Southwest Airlines and is among those quitting the Air Guard.
Two bills have just been introduced in Congress that would address concerns
about the anthrax vaccinations. On July 19, Rep. Benjamin Gilman, New York
Republican, introduced H.R. 2548, which would suspend the vaccination
program until the vaccine is determined to be safe and effective and to
provide for a study by the National Institutes of Health. The other, H.R.
2543, introduced by Rep. Walter Jones, a North Carolina Republican, would
make the shots voluntary.
Gilman's bill directs the National Institutes of Health to see that an
independent study is done to determine the types and severity of adverse
reactions and long-term health implications. The study would also determine
the effectiveness of the vaccine in protecting humans against all strains of
anthrax pathogens that U.S. military personnel are likely to encounter.
The Defense Department opposes requests to make the shots voluntary, is
not granting exceptions to the requirement to take shots, and, as it finds
itself getting deeper into this controversy, seems to be hardening its
position. Defense Secretary William Cohen recently wrote in a letter to
Army Times, "Just as soldiers must wear helmets, commanders must know all
their troops are vaccinated against anthrax."
And the Pentagon says the shots will continue no matter how many pilots
quit. It launched a campaign to convince the troops that the vaccine is
safe, but Mark Zaid, a Washington attorney who has represented at least two
dozen service members who have refused the shots, said the education effort
was handled poorly and backfired on DOD. He believes DOD is so embarrassed
about the matter that it won't back away and thereby admit to mistakes.
"They'll go kicking and screaming until the last possible second" when they
are forced to change the vaccination policy, he said.
Zaid, who had been working on Gulf War Syndrome issues, started getting
calls right after the shots started in March 1998. He said at first people
were usually just given a general discharge, then occasionally an
other-than-honorable discharge, and now more frequently a court martial.
The Marine Corps has been giving courts martial more than the other
services. In the active duty forces, it is mostly lower ranking enlisted
people who refuse, while in the reserve forces, captains, majors and
colonels are refusing and quitting. He noted that emergency-essential
civilians in DOD must also take the shots, and half a dozen senior civilians
in the Military Sealift Command have been fired.
What should service members do? "Tough decision. I don't know," Zaid
answered. "I have never given anybody advice about what they should do. I
always tell them they need to talk it over with family and friends. If you
decide to refuse it, come back to me and I will do what I can to help.
"The only thing I have given as far as advice was that if you are going to
refuse the vaccine, and that is your final decision, then don't accept an
Article 15 nonjudicial punishment. That makes no sense. Just ask to be
administratively separated or request a court martial. You are going to end
up at one or the other anyway, so why drag the process out? Why drag the
process out, why get demoted, why get fined, why get ostracized in the
meantime?"
"We identified so many errors in the [DOD] public statements, in their
literature where they are trying to convince people how safe it is." Zaid
told SFTT he has internal documentation from the Defense Department that
contradicts much of what was being said publicly. He accused public affairs
officers of being deliberately deceptive in discussing the facts about the
vaccine.
Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera acknowledged the risks in a memo
obtained and published by the San Diego Union-Tribune on June 29. The
vaccine, according to a memo signed by Caldera, "involves unusually
hazardous risks associated with the potential for adverse reactions in some
recipients and the possibility that the desired immunological effect will
not be obtained by all recipients." In September 1998 he agreed to accept
the burden of potential liability claims made against the vaccine
manufacturer by service members. At the same time DOD was conducting a
campaign to convince the troops that the vaccine is safe.
Rep. Gilman and five other members of Congress -- Christopher Shays, Sue
Kelly, Mark Souder, Doug Ose and James Talent -- sent Secretary Cohen a
letter on July 20 asking him to answer a series of pointed questions and
noting that they were receiving "an increasing number of contacts from
concerned constituents..." They wrote that Cohen had pledged that four
specific conditions would be met before vaccinations would start, and
charged that testimony in Congressional hearings has shown that "none of
these conditions was satisfactorily addressed before the vaccine program was
implemented."
The conditions were: 1) supplemental testing to assure sterility, safety,
potency and purity of the vaccine stockpile; 2) implementation of a system
for fully tracking anthrax immunizations; 3) approval of operational plans
to administer the vaccine and communications plans to inform military
personnel; and 4) review of medical aspects of the program by an independent
expert.
They noted that the Defense Department had cited Food and Drug
Administration approval of anthrax vaccine, but pointed out that FDA had
approved a vaccine for workers in the woolen industry. A weaponized version
of anthrax, meant to be inhaled by victims, is different and there has been
little or no testing of the vaccine's effectiveness in humans against this
form of anthrax for obvious reasons. Testing on animals had mixed results.
The members of Congress said they have yet to see any evidence that this
vaccine would be effective against altered or multiple strains of anthrax,
which the Russians are known to have experimented with, and further noted
"extremely poor performance of the vaccine against even individual multiple
strains in the Ft. Detrick guinea pig studies..."
Safety of the vaccine is another of their concerns. They argue that not
enough is known yet to safely administer it to 2.5 million people. If only
2 percent of the people experience adverse reactions, that would be 50,000
people -- an unacceptably high number. And, in addition, it's "completely
unknown what will be the effect of cumulative annual boosters, let alone the
combined effects from 15 or so other biological warfare vaccines under
development." They are also concerned about the plant that produces the
vaccine, which has been repeatedly cited by the FDA for quality control
problems and other violations dating to 1990. The facility closed
"voluntarily" in March 1998 to make $1.8 million in renovations and a $15
million expansion funded by DOD. The letter to Cohen notes that at a
briefing following an April 29 subcommittee hearing, it was stated that the
vaccine "is dangerous enough the manufacturer demanded, and received,
indemnification from the Army against the possibility that persons
vaccinated may develop anaphylaxis or some unforseen reaction of serious
consequences, including death." Why was DOD so quick to say the vaccine is
safe? the writers asked.
A point is also raised about several reports of troops receiving shots
(during the Gulf War) from expired lots of vaccine, "to the significant
detriment of their health as recorded in testimony and the media." Cohen
was asked what is being done to prevent this from happening again. He was
also asked about reports that persons giving the shots have failed to make
sure they were not giving shots to people who shouldn't get them for such
reasons as illness, pregnancy or previous adverse reactions. "Likewise, we
are also concerned that the reporting of adverse reactions among troops who
have received the vaccine, is being discouraged, so as not to cause undue
alarm in those units which have not received their first round of shots."
Cohen is asked about reports that when reserve component personnel express
an interest in leaving the service they meet "with delays, instructions to
not list the vaccine as a reason, and even threats of poor evaluation
reports." He is asked to provide assurances that these repressions will not
occur in the future.
The writers conclude by expressing concern about the impact of all of this
on morale and the need to ensure that the vaccine "is not itself a more real
threat to our citizens in uniform."
Another in a series of hearings in Congress about anthrax was held on July
21. Several military people who have suffered serious reactions to the
shots testified before sympathetic members of the Subcommittee on National
security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations, chaired by Rep.
Christopher Shays.
Their tales are disturbing. Captain Michelle Piel is an Air Force Academy
graduate and C-5 pilot at Dover AFB, Delaware. She was healthy and
actively flying last October when she received her first shot. Shortly
afterwards while flying back from an overseas mission, "the right side of my
head filled up with fluid," she said. When she landed, a flight surgeon
grounded her. In about three weeks she had recovered and took the second
shot and immediately felt ill again. She experienced fatigue, dizziness,
nausea, and blurred vision, joint pain and colds. She missed weeks of duty
and was examined by a dozen doctors who could not explain what the problem
was. She is better now, but still suffering from something and has periods
of regression. Doctors wanted her to take further anthrax shots to see what
would happen, but she refused. Though she was too sick to fly, the Air
Force did not want to file a report of an adverse reaction to the
vaccination. After many months her wing commander got her to specialists at
Walter Reed Army Medical Center who were able to help her. The wing
commander suspended the program at Dover, and that stirred tremendous
repercussions, she said. "Everyone I spoke to at Dover AFB recognized that
our wing commander sacrificed his career for us." The captain told the
committee she was testifying because she firmly believes "that our
military's health is critical to our nation's warfighting readiness."
Another pilot, a reservist at Dover, Jon Richter, testified to severe health
problems that started right after his shot. He said his hip joints cause
great discomfort now and he never had any problems before. He told the
committee he would rather walk away from the military rather than take
another shot. "I have defended my country and I have obeyed the orders of
the officers over me, but taking another anthrax shot is not an order I can
carry out," he declared.
A side issue involves freedom of speech for those who see a need to express
their concerns. An Air Force nurse on Okinawa, Captain Debra Egan, wrote in
Stars and Stripes of her concern as a health professional over the
vaccinations, and now says there have been retributions against her for
speaking out. The military paper has come to her defense. Other service
members are claiming there is pressure not to go public with this issue.
It is clear that refusal to take the shots is career-ending, no matter what
else happens. Shays called taking the vaccine "a profoundly personal
choice, whether or not to put something in their bodies they fear may do
more harm than good. After military service, the uniform comes off, but the
anthrax vaccine stays with you for life. It's just not the commitment many
dedicated men and women made to their country when they volunteered for
military service." He pledged to stick with this issue and other toxic
battlefield concerns. "We will follow it until we are sure medical force
protection means assuring the long term health of U.S. forces, not just
short-term mission capability."
"DoD needs to revise its policy and stop force-wide immunization," Zaid
said. Whether the shots become voluntary or just for select, high-risk
groups, he thinks they are unjustified for all service personnel. He said a
lot of the 2.5 million people are permanently stationed stateside in areas
that are not high risk, and don't need the shots. But then he offered an
unsettling thought to the interviewer: " You and I should be inoculated
before a lot of the military people for being here in the D.C. area."
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