US Decides to Issue Anthrax Vaccine

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http://dailynews./htx/nm/20011029/hl/vaccine_4.html

Monday October 29 10:28 AM ET

US Decides to Issue Anthrax Vaccine

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Decontamination personnel and hundreds of state and

private laboratory workers on the front line of the anthrax scare will be

eligible for vaccination against the germ warfare agent, the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday.

``We are recommending the vaccine for people repeatedly exposed to

anthrax,'' a CDC spokesman told Reuters.

``We're working with other agencies to round up the vaccine for them,'' the

spokesman said, in an apparent reference to the Pentagon's exclusive

stockpile of the vaccine.

He said the CDC would monitor recipients closely for any signs of dangerous

side effects.

The spokesman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the program,

the first broad use of the vaccine among civilians, would cover an estimated

800 lab workers and an unknown number of decontamination specialists.

The spokesman could not, however, confirm an earlier report by CNN that

criminal investigators and even postal workers could also be eligible for

the vaccine, now restricted to members of the US armed forces and a small

number of lab technicians.

Anthrax has killed three people, including two postal workers, and sickened

at least 11 others after letters laced with the deadly bacteria made their

way through the US mail system.

Antibiotics can easily treat and even prevent anthrax, but only if they are

given early enough. Often, by the time someone with the inhaled version of

the disease becomes seriously ill, it is too late to treat.

Untreated, inhaled anthrax kills 90% of its victims. The family of one

Washington postal worker who died said he had sought early treatment but was

told he had the flu and sent home.

Early symptoms of anthrax can resemble those of influenza and include fever,

muscle ache and a dry cough.

Thousands of people are taking antibiotics now while officials determine who

is most at risk of anthrax infection.

But health officials are reluctant to make people take antibiotics

needlessly, because of often serious side effects and because of the risk

that bacteria can become resistant to the drugs if they are used

unnecessarily.

Tests have found traces of anthrax in mailrooms that serve the CIA, the

Supreme Court, Congress, the White House, the State Department and the

Walter Army Institute of Research in suburban land, as well as in

the main mail distribution center for New York.

The anthrax vaccine is made by Lansing, Michigan-based BioPort Corp., which

is awaiting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to resume shipping

the vaccine. The FDA stopped production at BioPort in 1998 because of

quality concerns.

Virtually all the US stockpile of the vaccine is under the control of the

Pentagon, which has long worried that its soldiers will face enemy use of

anthrax on the battlefield. That stockpile appears to be the source of the

CDC vaccine.

Officials said the postal service had begun environmental testing at 200

postal facilities along the East Coast and random tests would be carried out

at post offices nationwide as a precaution.

The CDC said earlier it had no evidence that regular home mail was

contaminated but advised people who were worried to wash their hands after

opening their letters.