-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date forwarded: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 14:21:13 -0500 Send reply to: "Soldiers For The Truth - VOTG" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: "Soldiers For The Truth - VOTG" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: SFTT/VOTG Special Mailing Date sent: Sat, 5 Feb 2000 06:47:32 -0600 Forwarded by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***************************************************************** ********** VOICE OF THE GRUNT ********** ********** "ANTHRAX SPECIAL" ********** "When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen." General George Washington, New York Legislature, 17751 Soldiers For The Truth, PO Box 63840, Colorado Springs, CO 80962-3840 04 February 2000 *********************************************************************** TABLE OF CONTENTS ARTICLES Anthrax Vaccine Is A Force Protection Facade 1 Anthrax, a Force Protection Requirement 2 Another Anthrax Prisoner. 3 =========================================================== WHY THIS "SPECIAL?" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Anthrax crisis continues. Every day more troops are refusing the shots. Every Day SFTT receives more mail from concerned parents that their children have become political prisoners for an ill-conceived force protection policy. As a former commander, I must admit that I received some calls where service members had misrepresented their own situations to their relatives and claimed that the Army was "railroading" them. Surprisingly enough however, once I explained the situation honestly and openly, 99% of all the people I talked to accepted my explanations, even if it meant admitting the soldier's fault. What it took was openness and honesty! Maybe that's where the Defense Department is failing miserably. When is the public going to get some straight answers? Young Americans join the Forces to defend our nation and not to be lab-rats. While The Pentagon and our politicians struggle over the truth with a more concerned public, many troops are becoming political prisoners of an overzealous chain of command. Maybe the best solution would be to freeze the Anthrax craze and provide scientifically researched honest answers as soon as possible. Also, a determined National policy that declares the United States willing to use appropriate retaliatory means, including limited nuclear strikes, could prevent an impending bio-warfare race that will only benefit an ever-growing pharmaceutical industry. =============================================================== ARTICLE 1 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anthrax Vaccine Is A Force Protection Facade ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ed.: A Special To The Hartford Courant, on 20 Jan 00. The article questions if the Pentagon is hyping up the possibility of an impending bio-warfare race. ************************************************************************ By Thomas L. Rempfer and Russell E. Dingle January 20, 2000 Two years ago, Secretary of Defense William Cohen announced the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program for all service members. The policy was an effort to protect our nation's armed forces from the threat of inhaled anthrax produced by a biological weapon. The vaccine was approved in 1970 for limited use to protect veterinarians and animal industry workers. The approval of this vaccine was based on a study of a different anthrax formulation found to be protective for topical or skin exposure to the disease. The FDA has consistently found that no meaningful assessment has been made of the vaccine's effectiveness in humans against inhalation anthrax. Additionally, the General Accounting Office reported that the long-term safety of the vaccine has not yet been studied. To date, only about 15 percent of the military has received vaccinations, while hundreds have been discharged, punished or court-martialed for refusing. The Defense Department's anthrax vaccination policy started as our troops deployed once again to draw a line in the sand when Saddam Hussein ejected U.N. weapons inspectors from Iraq in late 1997. Simultaneously, senior Department of Defense officials were challenged as to how they would protect the troops from Saddam's arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. On Dec. 15, 1997, the Pentagon responded by holding a press briefing using an anonymous spokesman to herald the decades-old anthrax vaccine as a lifesaver for U.S. troops. The spokesman was asked if this was a step toward a worldwide biological arms race? His answer was: ``I don't know. It could be, but I'm not prepared to answer that.'' Needless to say, this dubious doctrinal shift signals a troubling tacit acceptance of weapons outlawed by international treaties. Coupled with an apparent lack of a coherent deterrence strategy, this trend could undermine decades of international restraint in the biological warfare arena. These concerns are not new. Last summer six congressmen charged that Defense Secretary Cohen failed to meet his four prerequisites for implementing mandatory anthrax inoculations. Supplemental testing was terminated by the Pentagon due to inconsistencies and a plan to educate the troops has evolved into a series of misrepresentations to sell the program. The most egregious of the failed prerequisites was Secretary Cohen's commitment to have an ``independent expert'' review the policy. The Defense Department chose a Yale University gynecologist to justify the start of vaccinations even though he told Congress in April that he had ``no expertise in anthrax.'' Ironically, the Food and Drug Administration has inspected the vaccine manufacturing plant and refused to validate the manufacturing line. The problems have included sterility and potency deviations that highlight the persistent failure of this manufacturer to produce a safe and effective product. Regardless of these revelations, the Secretary of Defense continues to order service members to be inoculated with stockpiled vaccine produced under the same flawed manufacturing process that the FDA has again found too unacceptable to approve for production. These concerns also led four congressmen in November to urge the FDA to place the Pentagon's use of the anthrax vaccine under an ``investigational status,'' making it optional. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee recommended this same course of action in a scathing 1994 report on 50 years of Defense Department experiments on service members. An investigational vaccine status would force the Defense Department to comply with federal law and give service members informed consent and warnings about potential adverse effects. The congressmen said the vaccine should be "investigational" because the military is mandating widespread use of the vaccine for a purpose for which it was not licensed. Despite the controversy, service members know that comprehensive force protection is necessary. Detection devices, external protection, post-exposure antibiotics and the limited use of vaccines for imminent threats would provide deterrence to biological warfare without tempting production of other agents besides anthrax. These kinds of comprehensive force protection measures, rather than hyping the threat to justify a substandard vaccine, will renew the trust of military personnel. The current anthrax vaccine policy, packaged with repeated misrepresentations to the troops and to Congress, is viewed by many service members as a joke. The joke's sad punch line has become the Pentagon's continued lack of respect for the rights and health of the troops who protect this country with their lives. With 18 more bio-warfare vaccines under development and a presidential executive order that could allow experimentation on the troops, this debilitating direction will make recruiting and retaining service members for our nation's armed forces increasingly difficult. About the authors: Thomas L. Rempfer of West Suffield and Russell E. Dingle of East Hartford, were members of the Connecticut Air National Guard who had to transfer to other assignments after they were commanded to research anthrax inoculation policy and subsequently declined inoculation for them and their men. ==================================================== ARTICLE 2 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anthrax, a Force Protection Requirement ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ed.: The other side of the coin. This writer claims that the Anthrax vaccine is safe and necessary. He believes that our troops should know this to be properly informed. Although I see the points, the number of side effects still seems high. It also isn't proven against inhaled Anthrax..Would I recommend my family getting these shots - doubtful! *********************************************************************** We need to put out some basic facts about anthrax vaccination. Lots of people are throwing away their careers because of groundless, unscientific information available on the web. First of all, the vaccine is NOT experimental. It was approved by the FDA in 1970, and has been in use ever since. It was approved to protect against pulmonary (inhaled) anthrax as well as against bacteria that get into the body through cuts. Pulmonary anthrax is occurs naturally among wool workers; it's not just a weapon threat. The FDA, by the way, is so cautious about approving drugs that it currently takes years (if not decades) longer to get a drug approved in the US than in Europe. The FDA reconfirmed it's approval of the anthrax vaccine in 1985. That report stated that "in general, safety of this product is not a major concern, especially considering its very limited distribution and the benefit-to-risk aspects of occupational exposure in those individuals for whom it is indicated. Local reactions are typically mild, with erythema and slight local tenderness for 24 to 48 hours. Some individuals may have more severe local reactions, with edema, erythema greater than 5 x 5 cm, induration, local warmth, tenderness, and pruritus. Only a few systemic reactions with marked chills and fever have been recorded. All reactions reported have been self-limited." The risks of taking this vaccine are vanishingly small. To quote the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: "Vaccines are actually very safe, despite implications to the contrary in many anti-vaccine publications. Most vaccine adverse events are minor and temporary, such as a sore arm or mild fever. More serious adverse events occur rarely (on the order of one per thousands to one per millions of doses), and some are so rare that risk cannot be accurately assessed." Lots of people say that the vaccine will not protect against inhaled anthrax. The 1985 FDA report does say that "Anthrax vaccine poses no serious special problems other than the fact that its efficacy against inhalation anthrax is not well documented." The report concludes that "The Panel believes that [page 51059] there is sufficient evidence to conclude that anthrax vaccine is safe and effective under the limited circumstances for which this vaccine is employed." The decision to vaccinate the force against anthrax was not taken lightly. There is a very clear and deadly threat. The Soviet Union had hundreds to thousands of researchers working on anthrax weapons. Do you know what those people are doing today? I don't, but I doubt they've all taken up basket weaving. Iraq has admitted to producing weaponized anthrax. Making anthrax into a weapons really isn't much of a technological challenge. The Journal of the American Medical Association says (Vol 281, #18, May 12, 1999) "Of the numerous biological agents that may be used as weapons, the Working Group on Civilian Biodefense has identified a limited number of organisms that could cause disease and deaths in sufficient numbers to cripple a city or region. Anthrax is one of the most serious of these diseases." The Journal goes on to say "As of March 1, 1999, approximately 590,000 doses of anthrax vaccine have been administered to US Armed Forces (Gary Strawder, Department of Defense, Falls Church, Va, oral communication, April 1999); no serious adverse events have been causally related." Despite the clear threat and the availability of an approved vaccine, the Secretary of Defense required the following before issuing the order to vaccinate: (1) supplemental testing of anthrax vaccine lots in the stockpile to assure their potency, purity, sterility, and general safety, consistent with Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards; (2) approval of the Services implementation plans for execution and communication; (3) implementation of a system for fully tracking anthrax vaccinations; and (4) review of the health and medical aspects of the program by an independent expert. The Food and Drug Administration, American Medical Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and other national and international bodies agree that this vaccine is safe and effective. People are throwing away their careers for no good reason. I hope that the current suspension of vaccination will end quickly. The best possible outcome for America and her Armed Forces would be for everyone to understand that giving this vaccine is the right thing to do. If I could get it for my family, I would. I recently emailed a researcher at the Mayo Clinic about the anthrax vaccine, and his response was that it's a safe and effective vaccine against a real threat. It's not perfect, but it is as good as any other vaccine on the market. In addition to the crap that is out there on the web about the anthrax vaccine, there is also a lot of good information; here are some web sites that are very much worth checking for further information. http://www.immunofacts.com/ http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/6mishome.htm http://www.anthrax.osd.mil/ =============================================================== ARTICLE 3 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Another Anthrax Prisoner. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ed.: While the Pentagon and our political leadership are in a stand-off with concerned citizens, the troops are caught in the middle! Many kids are beginning to distrust the government and its institutions. They have become Anthrax prisoners. Distraught parents and relatives are asking for questions.. ************************************************************************ By a concerned parent (name withheld) They finally let..phone home last night (seems I've heard that phrase somewhere before) His spirits were good though he did miss us. He's on total news blackout. No Television, no newspapers, no discussing current events with anyone. The media has been bombarding the facility with calls. He's been instructed to have no contact with anyone. They did give in and have agreed to let him call once a day. I'm amazed at the ignorance/naivet� of the general public. Until we make them care nothing will change. They feel it doesn't affect them so they aren't really interested. So what do we do to make them understand this isn't just about 1 or 2 people? In some instances I get the feeling that they think once someone volunteers to serve our country they automatically become expendable. Comments like they volunteered for it, tell them to suck it in and take it, just infuriates me. What makes me even more angry is that these comments are usually made by some coward that would never serve in the Armed Forces. I've managed to hold my temper and just repeat facts and point out legitimate reasons we made this decision. I only hope we are a making a difference. So far the press has been kind to us. __ still is not commenting to the media except to state the old DOD propaganda. I feel rather like an ant standing in front of a bulldozer. We were told yesterday there is a whole squadron on Travis that is going to refuse the shot when or if it's their turn to rotate back into the hot spots. We could not however find out who they were. This was from a reliable source so I do hold it to be accurate. ============================================ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EDITOR'S NOTE: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As a rule of thumb, please try to keep article for possible publication to 700 words or less. We do make exceptions and will not turn away an 800 to 900 word piece. Please make every editing effort not to exceed these guidelines. If you believe you have a story that is longer than 700 words we will consider running it in parts. Keep the piece focused on the story you want to express, not impress upon the reader. Thanks to everyone for keeping the communication lines open and the ideas flowing. R.W. Zimmermann [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ============================================= HACK'S DEFENDING AMERICA COLUMN: Many readers have asked for guidance/help/ideas for getting Hack's column in their local newspapers. See <http://www.hackworth.com> --- NEWSPAPERS for a few suggestions. Thanks, R.W. Zimmermann ============================================= ARCHIVED DEFENDING AMERICA COLUMNS: You can now find copies of Hack's previous columns at: http://www.hackworth.com These are found in the Defending America Section, under Archived Copies. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ GLOSSARY OF MILITARY ACRONYMS: We've had numerous requests from troops in different branches of the military to establish this link so that we will all know how "all you others" talk that talk. 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