Critics question safety of vaccine additives

[Guest guest]

Critics question safety of vaccine additives

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2431508.php

By Gayle S. Putrich

Staff writer

A persistent criticism from opponents of the Pentagon’s anthrax vaccination

program is the charge that defense officials purposely put squalene in some

vaccine lots to boost troops’ immune responses and increase the length of time

vaccine stocks would remain effective.

The Pentagon and the vaccine’s manufacturer have repeatedly denied those

charges, but opponents continue to question whether the fatlike substance may

have played a role in illnesses developed by some troops who got anthrax shots

during the 1991 Persian Gulf War and in the early stages of the Pentagon’s

mandatory anthrax vaccine program in the late 1990s.

Although squalene occurs naturally in the human body, some scientists say

injecting even small amounts can cause illness.

Now, a study is drawing attention to another anthrax vaccine additive with

possible serious side effects — aluminum hydroxide, a substance routinely added

to many common vaccines to spur production of antibodies, though scientists are

not sure how it does that.

Defense officials acknowledge the vaccine contains aluminum hydroxide, which

the Federal Drug Administration considers safe for use in vaccines in small

amounts. But a study to be published in the February 2007 issue of

Neuromolecular Medicine says aluminum hydroxide at levels normally found in

vaccines killed neurons in the brains of mice and sparked serious side effects.

The squalene battle

Squalene, a cholesterol-building compound, is produced naturally by the body

in small amounts.

A Pentagon-initiated test by Stanford Research Institute International

conducted between May 1999 and September 2000 found no squalene in the anthrax

vaccine.

In late 2000, the FDA announced it had found traces of squalene in five lots

of anthrax vaccine. All had been sent to Dover Air Force Base, Del., where

scores of pilots reported muscle aches, memory loss, headaches, severe fatigue

and other symptoms after being ordered to take the shots in 1999.

Defense officials have insisted the presence of squalene in those lots was

accidental.

“The level ... identified by the FDA test is so minute that it is likely the

result of squalene in the oil of a fingerprint not cleaned from lab glassware,”

states the Pentagon’s anthrax vaccine Web site, www.anthrax.osd.mil.

But then-base commander Col. Felix Grieder told the media as recently as 2004

that he believed his airmen were used as guinea pigs for illegal medical

experiments.

A 1999 Tulane University study also found squalene antibodies in veterans of

the 1991 Gulf War who had received anthrax shots.

No medical study ever has pointed to a conclusive cause of the symptoms

collectively known as Gulf War illnesses. But participants in the 1999 Tulane

study all had similar symptoms and the same squalene antibodies in their blood —

even those who never actually deployed to the Persian Gulf.

In the study to be published in February, a collaboration by one American and

four Canadian scientists, mice were injected with two doses of adjuvants,

chemicals that boost immune response, at a level normally expected in vaccines,

scaled down to mouse-sized proportions.

Some mice received aluminum hydroxide, some got squalene, and others received

both.

“The greatest overall effects were seen in mice injected with aluminum

hydroxide,” the study states. The substance killed brain neurons and led to

“progressive and significant decrease in muscular strength and endurance,” loss

of long-term memory and motor control, and behavioral problems.

Researchers also compared the symptoms of veterans suffering from Gulf War

illnesseses and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis —Lou Gehrig’s disease — with the

symptoms observed in mice given aluminum hydroxide.

In addition to spinal cord problems, the mice suffered neuron death in the

same parts of the brain affected in human motor-function diseases like ALS and

Parkinson’s. Several studies have shown an above-average incidence of ALS among

Gulf War veterans.

“These results are consistent with a potential role for aluminum in motor

neuron death in ALS,” the study says.

The researchers acknowledge that variables such as stress, multiple

vaccinations and exposure to other toxins could cause or intensify negative

reactions to adjuvants.

But they also say even the possibility of negative effects from aluminum

hydroxide suggests that its use in anthrax vaccine and other vaccines for the

military and the general public should be reconsidered and studied further.

“Whether the risk of protection from a dreaded disease outweighs the risk of

toxicity is a question that demands urgent attention,” the study says.

At press time, Defense Department officials had not responded to several

requests for comment on the study.

Randi J. Airola, © 517-819-5926

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