-Caveat Lector- This Special Mailing is provided to educate and inform SFTT readers on a major issue affecting the readiness of the US military. SFTT continues to support calls for an immediate cessation of the current anthrax vaccination program pending an independent investigation to determine the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. ------------------------------------------------------------ “Shooting Straight on Anthrax” By Redmond H. Handy A White Paper on the August 5, 1999 DOD Press Briefing On August 5, 1999, Mr. Ken Bacon, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs held a briefing for reporters on the DOD anthrax vaccination program. He and the senior military officers who briefed the reporters made statements about the anthrax vaccination policy that are in direct conflict with General Accounting Office (GAO) investigations and testimony before Congress. This article reviews selected DOD answers to reporters’ questions during that briefing (the briefing excerpts are preceded by "Q" and "A" etc.). We encourage you to read the entire briefing transcript which is linked to on the SFTT web site at the address listed below. This article is also posted on the SFTT website at <http://www.sftt.org/articles/shooting_straight.shtml> in the articles section and uses hyperlinks to other sources so that readers have access to more detailed – and accurate -- information Q: Why can't this be on the record? Mr. Bacon: This is pretty technical stuff and I thought it would be a freer flow, more of a dialogue, if we did it this way… Q: There won't be any names attached to it, though. Mr. Bacon: We're going to do it this way, and there will be future opportunities to talk about that… Comment: Mr. Bacon’s linkage of anonymity and the disclosure of technical details, of which few were discussed in the briefing, is difficult to understand. He gave similar vague answers justifying anonymity for senior military officers when the mandatory anthrax vaccination policy was announced on 15 Dec 1997. Why are general and flag officers -- who are supposed to be warriors -- hiding behind a shield of anonymity when discussing this policy? DOD has lacked candor in the past when addressing servicemembers’ health concerns. DOD took years to admit the health risks to servicemembers exposed to nuclear tests in the 1950’s, Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, and chemical weapons during the Gulf War. Anonymous briefings by senior officers on the anthrax vaccination policy display a similar lack of candor. Rightly or not, this anonymous approach fuels the perception by military personnel that they may once more be used as “guinea pigs” in a DOD experiment. Army general officer briefer: “ I've got to tell you, personally it would be irresponsible and it's unconscionable that we would take a trooper into that threat area and not be vaccinated… And as a leader, I can't fathom that we would ever take a trooper into that threat environment without being vaccinated.” Comment: This statement mirrors SecDef Cohen’s remark last March that he would be “derelict” in his duties if he did not mandate the anthrax vaccine. DOD’s attempt to frame the anthrax vaccine as moral imperative may be an effective way to shut off debate about its safety, efficacy and doctrinal necessity. However, this approach ignores the fact that our major adversaries since WWII have had weaponized anthrax and that the FDA first licensed this vaccine in 1970. Does this mean that every SecDef and general officer since the Nixon Administration has been derelict because they did not mandate use of the vaccine? A 16 Aug 1999 Washington Post op-ed observed that, “while the risk of bioterrorism may have increased in recent years, insisting that a real attack is imminent or inevitable is gratuitous. Indeed, continuing a stream of alarmist statements is likely to provoke only more anxiety and more hoaxes.” The article also observed that “last month Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen warned that a biological weapons attack on American soil could be imminent.” Interestingly, senior military officers did not make alarmist statements about the anthrax threat until Mr. Cohen became SecDef in 1997. According to a 14 Aug 1999 Washington Post op-ed, Cohen has “made the potential use of biological or chemical agents by terrorist groups or individuals his personal signature contribution to the national security debate in the past several years.” Senior officers may also have been influenced by SecDef Cohen’s firing of a USAF general in 1997 over the Khobar Towers bombing – essentially setting a “zero-defect” force protection standard. Since then, any policy labeled as “force protection” is accepted without question and is promoted with statements like the following from a 14 May 1999 message from the Air Force Vice Chief of Staff to commanders: “anthrax is a mortal enemy that our airmen must be prepared to confront and conquer.” By necessity this rhetoric makes a decades-old weapon an “enemy,” instead of those who use them – which would be difficult since there has never been an anthrax attack before. Q: Sir, if the enemy knows that all your troops are vaccinated and they use a different agent that's not anthrax, then what do you do? A: I'm going to let the chemical experts answer that question when they come up here and talk about that. There are some solutions there… Comment: Unfortunately, the “chemical experts” who followed did not answer the question, except to say they were protecting against the “most dangerous threats.” But they are really only protecting against one threat. Reporters have asked similar questions before, and DOD briefers have given equally unclear answers. At the 15 Dec 1997 briefing, when asked whether DOD was starting a biological arms race by mandating this vaccine, the anonymous senior officer answered: “I don’t know. It could be, but I’m not prepared to answer that.” Q: Why do you think that is? Why so much trouble with this one [vaccine] in particular? A: I think a lot of it has to do with the Internet age. There's this tremendous amount of information out there that our youngsters can go right to the net and pull down information, and in fact there's a lot of disinformation on the Internet. Very, very aggressive, I think, disinformation about the program. We have a different generation today and they have that access to that. Comment: DOD has repeatedly characterized any information that disagrees with their position as “disinformation.” They seem particularly frustrated that servicemembers are able to quickly locate information via the internet – especially when it disproves DOD claims about the anthrax vaccine. For instance, a 15 Dec 1997 DOD press release claimed of anthrax vaccine, “It has been widely used in the United States since the early 1970s by livestock workers and veterinarians.” But on 26 Apr 1999 the Hartford Courant reported that an Army spokesperson admitted this was false. Despite this false claim, a DOD website message by the former Commandant of the Marine Corps still makes this assertion. Another example is the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs inferring in a 14 Aug 1998 press briefing and again during her Congressional testimony last March that the anthrax vaccination policy had been approved by a Yale medical school professor. However, in a letter to Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT) this past April the doctor, who is a gynecologist, admitted to “no expertise in anthrax.” DOD has never acknowledged this admission by their “expert” or explained why they asked a gynecologist to review a vaccination program. Last, the internet has made letters from two Secretaries of the Army, Michael Stone in 1991 and Louis Caldera in 1998, available to servicemembers. These letters acknowledge “unusually hazardous risks associated with potentially severe adverse reactions and the potential lack of efficacy of the anthrax vaccine.” In both letters the Secretaries of the Army indemnified the manufacturer from liability for harm to servicemembers by the vaccine. Q: What do you say to those that have trouble, whether it's valid or not in your mind, what do you say to them that say, 'I don't want to do it?' A: …If you're going to go into combat you don't want to wear your helmet, I'm sorry. You're going to wear your helmet... Comment: Senior officers have frequently used the “helmet analogy” before. Yet, DOD has not identified a single servicemember opposed to the mandatory anthrax vaccination policy who has ever refused to wear a helmet (or ever refused a vaccine other than the anthrax vaccine.) Congressman Christopher Shays responded to DOD’s “helmet analogy” by stating: “After military service, the uniform comes off, but the anthrax vaccine stays with you for life.” Q: So the incentive to [Bioport], just to clarify this point, is that they continue to produce this vaccine, the government covers their costs of production, they get to stay in business, and they have the potential to make a profit with other customers, and without this help they'd probably not remain in business. Am I reading this correctly? A: That's correct. But let's not forget that the key here is that we get our vaccine. Comment: In 1998 Bioport – a start-up company with no track record -- bought the anthrax vaccine plant from the State of Michigan and signed a sole-source contract with DOD to produce vaccine. On 30 Jun 1999 the CEO of Bioport told Congress that “BioPort has incurred losses at a rate that cannot be sustained in the future.” Subsequently, during the 5 Aug 1999 briefing, DOD announced that it would nearly double the amount paid to Bioport under the contract from $25.7 million to $49.8 million -- while receiving 25% less vaccine. Additionally, DOD agreed to advance Bioport $18.7 million to solve their cash-flow crisis. The GAO reported that “BioPort’s cash flow problem is due to its inability to achieve its overly optimistic business plan.” And on 6 Aug 1998 the New York Times reported that a Bioport spokeswoman said of the company's executives: "They did not begin to anticipate the cost of producing the vaccines." Q: There were other companies that bid on this, and I realize that Michigan made the sale, not the Pentagon. But who are those other companies, and how did this company end up in the hands of this holding corporation that's based in the Caribbean and apparently doesn't have a lot of resources to sustain itself? How did that happen? Have you explored that at all? A: I really wasn't involved. That was completely between the State of Michigan and Bioport. I can't really answer that. Comment: DOD’s actions attempt to guarantee the survival of a poorly managed, start-up company -- and the stakes of its investors. One of those investors is Admiral William Crowe, who was given 13% ownership in Bioport – for nothing. According to an 8 July 1998 New York Times article, he “was one of the most senior military figures to support Mr. Clinton in the 1992 Presidential campaign.” Army briefer: “The first [issue] that's sort of hanging in the background and I think needs a direct answer is the FDA having to shut the plant down for renovations. That's another one of those urban legends or something that just keeps cropping up. We planned to shut the plant down to modernize it…” [and later] **COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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