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Refusing An Order
Soldiers Refuse Anthrax Shots
U.S. Army Sgt. Kenneth Reinhard administers the first dose of the anthrax
vaccine to Specialist Sadie Urban at Doha Camp base, 25 millies from Kuwait
City.
(Gustavo Ferrari/AP Photo)
(RealVideo)
(download RealPlayer )
By Howard L. Rosenberg
ABCNEWS.com
W A S H I N G T O N — When the orders came to be vaccinated for anthrax,
Airman First Class Jeffrey Bettendorf dug in his heels and refused.
But orders are orders — not only for Bettendorf, but all 2.4 million
active duty and reserve military members who are expected to be fully
inoculated against anthrax by 2005.
When Bettendorf first refused the shot, the Air Force slapped him with
45 hours of extra duty. Then he was demoted. Finally, despite a spotless
military record, the Air Force discharged him for misconduct under “other
than honorable circumstances.”
Bettendorf, an equipment mechanic who was based at Travis Air Force Base
in Northern California, says he worried that the vaccine is unsafe and might
cause health problems.
“I don’t think it’s lawful to tell people to inject something into
their body that hasn’t been proven to be safe,” Bettendorf told ABC’s 20/20,
adding that he believes the vaccine could cause cancer. “It’s mainly that;
cancer, health problems in the future.”
Growing Suspicion
Although there is no proof linking the vaccine to cancer or other substantial
health risks, Bettendorf is not the only one fighting the vaccination.
Sixteen months after the Defense Department announced plans to inoculate all
military personnel against anthrax, the Pentagon appears to be facing a small
but growing rebellion.
Roughly 200 U.S. troops now face dismissal for fighting mandatory
anthrax vaccinations. Most recently, 23 sailors preparing to ship out to the
Persian Gulf this month were demoted, fined and given extra duty after
refusing anthrax vaccinations. In February, 11 California Air Force Reserve
pilots quit rather than take the anthrax vaccine.
The Marines Corps has been particularly hard-hit, with more than two
dozen Marines in Okinawa, Japan, refusing the vaccine.
Pentagon Insists Vaccine Is Safe
Anthrax, a disease that normally afflicts livestock, can be used as a weapon
when spores are released into the air and people breathe them in. Authorities
believe that nearly a dozen countries, including Iraq, North Korea and
Russia, are developing such biological weapons.
Responding this week to questions about growing resistance to the
vaccination, Pentagon officials maintained that the inoculations are safe.
Some military personnel, especially the Army’s Special Forces, have been
receiving vaccinations since the 1970s to protect against the deadly threat,
said Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Michael Doubleday.
“There are individuals who are still employed by the services,
particularly the Army, who have actually been receiving this vaccine for 25
years without any ill effects,” he said during a regular briefing with
reporters this week.
Doubleday blamed the scattered resistance to inoculations partly on
“misinformation” that has shown up on Internet sites about the anthrax
vaccine.
Some of those Web sites include excerpts from an internal Food and Drug
Administration report that was highly critical of the vaccine’s manufacturer
just over a year ago. Bettendorf said he looked at those sites when he
started to research the vaccine.
“I looked on the Internet at first to see what I could find, just
because it’s a fast place to find some information, and I found a lot of
negative things on it,” he says.
Bad Memories From Agent Orange
This is not the first time that health concerns have been raised about
Pentagon practices. The Defense Department continues to struggle with health
claims stemming from Agent Orange, the defoliant used in Vietnam, as well as
atomic testing.
Refusals to accept anthrax vaccinations may also stem from the
controversial use of experimental vaccines during the 1991 Gulf War. Some
troops blamed a subsequent illness, “Gulf War Syndrome,” on drugs
administered to counter biological and chemical exposure, including the
anthrax vaccine, which was given to tens of thousands of service personnel.
“Look at the Gulf War experience,” cautions Patrick Eddington, a former
CIA military analyst who now researches nuclear, chemical and biological
defense issues, “one of the lessons that we’ve learned is when the Pentagon
makes a claim about a particular medical product and its efficacy, you have
to treat that claim with great caution.”
But no hard evidence has been produced to tie Gulf War Syndrome to
anthrax vaccine, despite exhaustive studies. Even skeptics concede that proof
of any dangers of the vaccine are lacking — but they also quickly add the
proof that it is safe has yet to be demonstrated as well.
“The question here is, Is this the right product and has it been
effectively tested?” warns Eddington. “And when you look at the data that’s
available, I think the answer is no.”
Eddington and Mark Zaid, an attorney for Bettendorf, recently obtained
highly critical FDA inspection reports of the vaccine’s only licensed U.S.
manufacturer. Those reports accused the manufacturing plant of sloppiness and
raised questions about the vaccine’s sterility and potency.
At the time, the FDA nearly closed the plant down, and the related
reports eventually made it onto the Internet, something that fueled concern
about the mandatory inoculations.
Eventually, the manufacturer was sold and the FDA now agrees with the
Pentagon that the vaccine and its manufacturer are safe.
But as a father and husband, Bettendorf says, what bothers him the most
is a possible threats to his health.
“I really think I have a great possibility of getting ill from this,”
he said. As for when he faced a possibility of a court-martial, “Six months
in jail is over in six months. If my health goes bad, I have to live with it
the rest of my life.”
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