-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Doctors Vs. Anthrax Vaccine By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS The Hartford Courant May 14, 2001 Dr. Frank Fisher describes the 1993 incident that he believes led to his retirement from the active military "like something out of `The X-Files.'" It was two years after the Persian Gulf War, and Fisher's unit at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio was about to be called on a mission. Medics were busy vaccinating some of the unit's members all in a line, one after the other. Fisher was expecting a typhoid vaccination. But first came a surprise, mysterious shot that Fisher, a lieutenant colonel, could not identify. It was delivered by a junior enlisted medical technician with no nametag or rank insignia. "When I asked her to put the shot on my record, she handed back the shot record [without recording it]. I asked her to tell me what she had just given me and she refused. Then I saw the vial. It was small and had a cloudy whitish fluid in it. The label was brown and looked aged, as did the box that it and the other vials came out of. It was unlike any other vials I had ever seen. I went to reach for the vial, and she moved it out of my reach." Fisher, aware of the line of patients awaiting their shots behind him, moved on for the typhoid vaccination. He said he figured the second technician would enter the first shot into his medical record, but, he found out later, she didn't, he said. Seven years later - forced to leave the military because of a series of medical problems of unknown cause - he was watching "60 Minutes," the CBS investigative television magazine program. It was an edition in which about half a dozen service members blamed severe sicknesses on anthrax vaccinations they had received. "The picture of the vial [of anthrax shown on television] was identical to the one I had seen when I was vaccinated," Fisher said. "The symptoms of those on `60 Minutes' were almost identical to mine." Fisher now believes he received an anthrax vaccination that day in 1993 at Brooks, a medical research base, even though the vaccine had not been required since the end of the gulf war. It would not be until 1998 that the military launched a mandatory anthrax inoculation program, intended to protect 2.4 million troops against biological warfare. Today, having endured ailments such as fatigue and joint pain that led to his retirement and limit his activities at his Seattle home, Fisher, 52, has become part of a network of active and retired military officers - including other doctors - fighting the anthrax vaccination program. Since it became mandatory in 1998, the inoculation of about 508,700 service people has resulted in more than 1,530 federal complaints of adverse reactions of varying severity, everything from swollen arms and minor rashes to long-term autoimmune disorders. Many opponents of the program say thousands more service people do not report adverse reactions for fear of losing their military jobs. Because of the problems, scores of service people have declined to take the vaccine, and have been disciplined or expelled from the active armed services. There has been a loss of 25 percent of pilots and aircrew who serve in the National Guard and military air reserve units, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office. The GAO is projecting the loss of another 18 percent of such personnel. At the heart of the controversy over the program are questions about the legality of the program, the safety of the vaccine and whether it is effective against airborne anthrax spores. (A similar drug had been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1970 only for use by animal mill workers and medical researchers and others who could suffer contact with the animal bacteria through cuts in the skin.) The Defense Department and the FDA insist that more-recent animal tests, done before the program began in 1998, prove the drug is safe and effective for use as protection against airborne biological warfare. The Defense Department says serious reactions, such as those requiring hospitalization, occur just once per 200,000 doses. Likewise, the Air Force said research "shows the [vaccine] to be safe and effective, and we firmly believe insuring the health and safety of our people is the right thing to do. This is a force protection issue, plain and simple." "Regardless of their specialty, any Air Force member who refuses the shot puts themselves and their mission in danger. Refusals to take the shot are considered as refusals to obey a direct order, and as such, will be handled with appropriate disciplinary or legal means." Fisher, a specialist in internal medicine, has become sharply critical of Pentagon leaders who pushed ahead with the anthrax vaccination program. He said he and others want those responsible to be punished for the lifelong sicknesses he believes he and others suffer because they were given the vaccine. Fisher has a 70 percent military health disability, but is still seeking an additional Air Force disability retirement to help pay for his living expenses, because he can no longer practice medicine. He was recently hospitalized with a broken leg he says is due to a degenerative bone problem that he blames on the vaccine. "We need for the Pentagon to own up that this is a defective and experimental vaccine. We need to bring the people to justice who did this, and we need to be appropriately compensated. We need to make sure that this never happens again," he said. The U.S. Air Force does not accept Fisher's story, though it does not deny it, either. "We cannot, nor do not, concede that Dr. Fisher did not receive an accurate record of all of his vaccinations on Sept. 24, 1993," said Air Force spokeswoman Leigh Anne Bierstine. "This is because there is no way to verify his claim that he received any other immunization [besides typhoid] on that date," she said. "Today, the Air Force has in place a standardized electronic tracking mechanism that accounts for all immunizations an individual receives. However, unfortunately, this system was not in place in 1993." In a series of interviews, Fisher and other doctors with ties to the military describe how they either refused to take the vaccine and faced punishment, or took it even though they didn't believe it was safe. Three of those interviewed said there are some military doctors, nurses and medical technicians who feel so strongly that they find ways to manipulate the system to avoid taking the vaccine. Defense Department officials say there is no evidence to indicate that people are manipulating the system to avoid taking the anthrax vaccine. Once he decided he didn't want to take the anthrax vaccination, Air Force Capt. John Buck, an emergency room doctor, decided to face a potential prison term rather than leave the service with a possible fine and a less-than-honorable discharge. By going to a military court to argue the mandatory vaccination program is illegal, Buck is warring with high-ranking Pentagon officials. His chances of winning, based on the failures of others, are not high, but he said he would rather fight than stay silent. "I am taking a stand as a doctor," the 32-year-old Buck said. "If I didn't, I couldn't look at myself in the mirror. I can't just abandon my patients. "Medicine is founded on three principles: trust, science and patient rights. And so if I simply turn my head and ignore the rights of my patients, I have compromised my trust. This vaccine is not founded on good science. So this program violates all three of those principles." Buck's anthrax problems began when it appeared last October that he was going to be sent overseas from his assignment at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss. "I was willing to go without a shot. I said I'd take antibiotics, I'd sign a waiver not to sue, and I'd sign a waiver to release the service's $200,000 life insurance policy on me." He was told those were not options. Eventually, a higher-ranking officer was chosen for the mission. Nevertheless, Buck said, superior officers soon told him he would have to take the vaccine even though he was no longer going to a high-threat area requiring it. He refused. Buck's court martial for disobeying an order to take the vaccine is slated to open today at Keesler. Buck has since sued the Defense Department and several other agencies in federal court, challenging the legality of the vaccine itself. John Westover, a former Air Force public health doctor, said he became so upset with the haphazard way the military was vaccinating 20,000 troops in 1998 in the Persian Gulf that he became vocal in his opposition to the drug. Some people who were vaccinated became sick, other people resisted taking the shots and were punished, and still others escaped inoculation because of the inability of computers and administrators to keep tabs, he said. Westover, 43, now living in Fort Collins, Colo., had a firsthand view. A major in the U.S. Air Force, he was among those responsible for supervising the anthrax vaccination program in this country and in the Persian Gulf area between 1997 and 1999. He himself was required to take the anthrax shots, and he said he suffered no serious adverse reaction - just some tremors in his arm. During a 1998 tour in Saudi Arabia, Westover said, he sent scores of e-mail messages to his wife discussing the anthrax vaccine program's drawbacks. Soon after he arrived back at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio in early 1999 to continue his work administering the vaccine program, Westover was accused of over-billing for military-subsidized school tuition. In April 2000, after months of arguing over the false-billing charges, Westover agreed to leave the service and accept a less-than-honorable discharge as discipline for the charges. He insists the allegations were false, and said he believes he was targeted because of his stance against the anthrax vaccine. But he said it was not worth a continuing legal battle against the military. Neither the Department of Defense nor the Air Force would comment on Westover's characterizations of the dispute that led to his discharge. Retired Navy Lt. Craig M. Uhl, a former medical corps supervisor who now lives in Monarch Beach, Calif., decided to leave the military in 1999 before facing the kind of trouble that befell Westover and Buck. He had joined the service in July 1995 to serve as a physician both aboard ship and on shore. Uhl, 46, is continuing, while in a private medical practice, to oppose the military's use of what he believes is an unhealthful vaccine that was never properly licensed as a defense against biological warfare. He never had to take it. "What is a physician in the military, if a physician is to merely take orders, and not be an advocate for the health of the fleet as he is responsible to be?" Uhl asked. "When a ship sails out, the one person it cannot sail without is the medical corpsman. The corpsman checks on the cleanliness of the food, the drinking water and the health of the sailors aboard. Today in the Navy, it is as if you are on a ship without a corpsman." He said he believes Buck is one of the few doctors and medical corps persons disciplined, because so many others have either dropped out of the service, have reluctantly taken the shot or have falsified their medical records to show they took it. Uhl said several doctors and corpsmen told him they knew how to avoid taking the vaccine, but still have their vaccination records showing they had been inoculated. Navy officials refused to comment on Uhl or his critique of the anthrax vaccine. Buck said at least one person suggested that he alter his own record, which Buck declined to do. He simply refused to take the shots. Another person told him he altered his own records to show he had taken the vaccine when he hadn't, said Buck. Westover, who was in charge of checking on who received vaccinations, said he knew of a doctor, a nurse and two medical technicians who used medical excuses to avoid the vaccine until they were already overseas, where military computers with vaccination records could not catch them. It wasn't until about October 1998, Westover said, that sophisticated computer software made it tougher to avoid the vaccine or to alter paper medical documents to show falsely that personnel had taken the vaccine. Even then, he said, a medical person with knowledge of the computer system could change records, though Westover acknowledged he never observed anyone doing that. Fisher said that while he was in the military before the anthrax vaccination program started, it was not uncommon for medical personnel to "carefully edit their medical records" by adding or subtracting data. In fact, he said that even nonmedical personnel had access to most of their medical records when they changed assignments. James Turner, a Defense Department spokesman, declined to answer specific questions about the techniques that Buck, Westover, Uhl and Fisher say allow service personnel to avoid taking the vaccine. But Turner said computer security of medical records is strong. "Each of the military service systems require user identification codes and passwords that restrict unauthorized access, as well as providing an audit trail of where the data came from," he said. "In addition, periodic quality-control checks are used to monitor data integrity." Turner also said the department has seen no evidence to show that opposition to the vaccine is widespread among military doctors. But as the months go by, the movement opposing the vaccination program is attracting more prominent supporters. Besides a sharply critical congressional investigation led by U.S. Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has asked the Pentagon and the FDA to stop the shots. He has expressed fear about harm to those taking the vaccine and the liability to the state should Connecticut National Guard troops become sick after taking it. Blumenthal, who has researched the issue for a year and a half, said the opposition to the drug by military doctors is impressive. It reveals, he said, "another powerful piece of evidence that people with the most knowledge and expertise about this vaccine are avoiding it at all cost." *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 ] Want to be on our lists? 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