Mandatory anthrax vaccinations raise concerns

[Guest guest]

December 29, 2006

National Vaccine Information Center

e-news

" The Pentagon is reviving its mandatory anthrax vaccinations despite

allegations that the shots have contributed to as many as 23 deaths and

sickened hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of soldiers....The Pentagon has

been rocked by criticism that it has failed to adequately track whether the

shots have caused diseases. Indeed, as occurred with Francis, many soldiers

are injected with several vaccines on the same day, making it harder to

identify the cause of illnesses....Col. Randall , who runs the

Military Vaccine Agency, said the Pentagon believes health risks from the

anthrax vaccine " are equal to those of other vaccines " that cause illnesses

in only a tiny percentage of those vaccinated.....Numerous public health

experts believe BioThrax causes a range of problems, particularly among

women and people prone to autoimmune diseases. They list Guillain-Barre,

which can kill or paralyze; other neurological disorders; diabetes;

arthritis; chronic fatigue syndrome; chronic muscle and joint pain;

respiratory ailments; vision problems; memory loss, and depression....The

afflicted soldiers blame their government.... "

Barbara Loe Fisher Commentary:

The M.D./Ph.D. government health officials employed by the Departments of

Defense and Health and Human Services continue to try to cover-up the

casualties of anthrax vaccinations forced on U.S. soldiers. The young

military recruits, who enlist in America's all-volunteer military forces,

are among the strongest and healthiest members of society. Far too many are

pushed into poor health after being injected with multiple vaccines,

including the notoriously reactive anthrax vaccine, after they become

soldiers.

Meryl Nass, M.D., Medical Director for NVIC's Military and Biodefense

Vaccine Project (MBVP), has treated more than 500 seriously ill men and

women, whose health problems began shortly after being injected with

anthrax vaccination during military service. She has been in contact with

many hundreds more who have reported permanent brain and immune system

dysfunction.

Whether in a civilian or military setting, government health officials

continue to cover-up, deny and minimize the casualties of vaccination. For

more information about anthrax vaccine and other military vaccines, go to

<http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=a5s6f8bab.0.pcgwfzbab.oblmlwbab.8914 & ts=S0216 & p=htt

p%3A%2F%2Fwww.military-biodefensevaccines.org%2F>www.military-

biodefensevaccines.org

No forced vaccination. Not in America.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16301061.htm

Mandatory anthrax vaccinations raise concerns

Retired U.S. Air Force Sgt. Lyles is trailed by his daughter,

Ainsley, 3, as he walks with a cane at home in Mentor, Ohio

McClatchy Newspapers

December 22, 2006

By Greg Gordon

WASHINGTON - En route home from the Persian Gulf on a military supply ship

in 2003, merchant seaman Francis and his mates got an ultimatum: Take

anthrax and smallpox vaccinations or lose your jobs.

Francis' Seattle attorney, , described the shipboard scene

the next day off the isle of Crete as: " Wham, bam. 'Get in line. Take your

shots.' "

Within days of taking the two shots, Francis' feet began to tingle and

burn. When he later took the second in a series of six anthrax shots, his

health slid downhill. Since then, the 45-year-old messmate from Las Vegas

has fought a rare nervous system disease known as Guillain-Barre Syndrome,

along with chronic pain, pneumonia and a life-threatening blood clot.

Vaccine makers are immune from lawsuits, so Francis sued the government,

winning what his lawyer calls a " substantial " settlement in December 2005.

Others say Uncle Sam shelled out about $2 million.

But Francis' success is unlikely to be duplicated by any soldier harmed in

the massive anthrax inoculation program that's set to get under way in

earnest early next year. Some 200,000 troops, who unlike private employees

are barred from suing the U.S. government, will be required to take the

vaccine.

The Pentagon is reviving its mandatory anthrax vaccinations despite

allegations that the shots have contributed to as many as 23 deaths and

sickened hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of soldiers.

On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services canceled an $877.5

million contract with California-based VaxGen. Inc. for what would have

been a substitute anthrax vaccine. HHS said the company missed deadlines

for beginning tests on humans.

That puts even more focus on the controversial, decades-old vaccine, which

has been used to inoculate 1.5 million military personnel. The Pentagon has

been rocked by criticism that it has failed to adequately track whether the

shots have caused diseases. Indeed, as occurred with Francis, many soldiers

are injected with several vaccines on the same day, making it harder to

identify the cause of illnesses.

In 2004, lawyers for sick soldiers won a court injunction blocking the

mandatory shots until the Food and Drug Administration reviewed the license

of land-based vaccine manufacturer Emergent BioSolutions. In December

2005, the FDA declared the vaccine safe and restored the license.

But testimony from some military doctors undercuts that decision.

Dr. Limone , the medical director of the Vaccine Healthcare Center

at the Army's Walter Army Medical Center, testified that Francis had

" a rare, vaccine-associated, neuro-immunological disease, " according to

court papers.

Dr. , a neurologist at the center, said the dual

vaccinations afflicted Francis with a Guillain-Barre variant in which the

body's immune system attacks the nervous system.

In another case, the medical director of a Vaccine Healthcare Center at

Lackland Air Force Base testified last year on behalf of Torquato, a

senior airman being court-martialed for using cocaine and methamphetamine

to cope with muscle pain and chronic fatigue syndrome, which he blames on

his anthrax shots. Helping Torquato win a lighter sentence, Dr.

Hrncir said it " appears that we are having higher numbers of people coming

down with chronic fatigue syndrome as a result of this vaccine. "

Despite such testimony, Pentagon health chief Winkenwerder

announced on Oct. 16 that safety questions had been resolved and that the

shots would soon resume - the Pentagon now says in January - for troops

deployed in the Middle East, Korea and other areas at high risk of a

terrorist attack with germ weapons such as smallpox and anthrax.

Col. Randall , who runs the Military Vaccine Agency, said the

Pentagon believes health risks from the anthrax vaccine " are equal to those

of other vaccines " that cause illnesses in only a tiny percentage of those

vaccinated.

Burrows, Emergent's vice president of corporate communications,

pronounced the vaccine - sold as BioThrax - to be " safe and effective " and

vetted " more than any in history. "

But on Dec. 13, lawyers who succeeded in stalling the mandatory program in

2004 filed suit seeking a new injunction, alleging that the FDA manipulated

data from a 1950s clinical study and circumvented its rules in licensing a

vaccine that was modified multiple times.

Numerous public health experts believe BioThrax causes a range of problems,

particularly among women and people prone to autoimmune diseases. They list

Guillain-Barre, which can kill or paralyze; other neurological disorders;

diabetes; arthritis; chronic fatigue syndrome; chronic muscle and joint

pain; respiratory ailments; vision problems; memory loss, and depression.

The afflicted soldiers blame their government.

Retired Army Capt. B. Hodge, 54, of Carlsbad, N.M., said he was

serving as a chaplain when he and his Tennessee-based Army reserve unit

were injected with half a dozen shots of anthrax vaccine at Fort Bragg,

N.C., in 1990 before being deployed to Saudi Arabia.

Hodge said Army health care personnel refused at the time to identify the

anthrax vaccine, instead calling it " Vaccine A. " He said he burned with

fever for several days and permanently lost feeling in his fingers. Now he

fights an autoimmune disorder that's destroying his lungs. " I love my

country, " Hodge said. " It's my government I don't trust. "

Retired Air Force Sgt. Lyles, 32, of Mentor, Ohio, said he was

injected with the shot in October 2003 at Youngstown Air Force Base.

A few minutes later, Lyles said, he fell off a stool in the base's avionics

shop from anaphylactic shock and hit his head on the cement floor. Lyles,

who had always been athletic, said that he recovered from the concussion

but that Guillain-Barre left him walking with a cane.

" If there is a problem with the vaccine, why subject people that are

helping you defend what you believe in? " asked Lyles, who also said he's

lost some of his short-term memory.

An FDA system that collects adverse reaction reports for all vaccines has

recorded more than 4,700 reports related to anthrax shots over the last 16

years. The number of cases, the agency says, will " inevitably be

underreported. "

The FDA said it has received 23 reports of anthrax vaccine-related deaths,

but has seen no proof that the shots were to blame. The FDA also couldn't

readily estimate the number of serious illnesses associated with the

vaccinations. In the past, it has estimated 500 cases.

Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist in Bar Harbor, Maine, who has specialized in

anthrax vaccine-related illnesses, says the estimates of health problems

are vastly understated.

Nass said she has treated more than 500 seriously ill patients and that at

least 1,500 more have phoned or sent e-mails.

Defense Department officials say several studies, including analyses of

soldiers' disability claims and of post-vaccination hospitalizations,

debunk the health concerns. But as recently as May, the Government

Accountability Office said that the vaccine's long- term safety " has not

been studied. "

The Pentagon also draws criticism for giving anthrax shots with other

vaccines. , a retired Air Force pilot who has crusaded

against the vaccine, charges that this is done " so they can hide which

vaccine is causing the problem. "

He cites the case of Lacy, a 22-year-old Army reservist who was

awaiting deployment to the Persian Gulf in early 2003 when she received an

anthrax shot and four other vaccinations at Fort McCoy, Wis.

A month later, she died of a pneumonia-like affliction at the Mayo Clinic

in Rochester, Minn. The Pentagon called her death " a rare, tragic event

that may have been related to vaccination, " but said two expert medical

panels couldn't identify any of the five vaccines as the culprit.

Pentagon spokeswoman Ann Ham said each reported death is similarly

investigated, but none has been " causally associated with anthrax

immunization alone. " said a government immunization panel found no

reason not to give vaccines together.

Much Pentagon data remain out of the public's reach, even though a Defense

Medical Surveillance System tracks all illnesses among troops. After the

National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine found no proof of

causal links between the vaccine and illnesses in 2002, but urged more

research, the Pentagon stopped issuing quarterly analyses of BioThrax's

effects. " There isn't a need for that, " said.

Geier, vice president of the land- based Institute for Chronic

Illnesses, and his father, Dr. Mark Geier, have analyzed the FDA's vaccine

adverse reaction reports and published numerous articles on vaccine safety.

Geier said the reactions to BioThrax among healthy soldiers have been

" many orders of magnitudes higher " than they've been for nearly all other

civilian vaccines.

The Defense Department has said it's given the vaccine to an estimated

175,000 troops involved in the 1991 Gulf War, but said it didn't keep

accurate records of who was inoculated.

A Department of Veterans Affairs advisory committee that investigated

possible causes of Gulf War Syndrome, clusters of illnesses that afflicted

some 200,000 war veterans, didn't rule out the anthrax vaccine as a

possible cause, said Steve , a panel member and official of

Veterans for America.

While said that more BioThrax studies are under way, Nass

dismissed the Pentagon research as " epidemiological garbage. "

For example, she cited a military study of vaccine links to optic neuritis

that excluded troops who developed vision problems in their first 18 weeks

in the military, even though many soldiers get their shots in boot camp.

The study also omitted other soldiers not diagnosed within 18 weeks of

vaccinations - shots given just before they were sent overseas where there

were no ophthalmologists, she said.

The mandatory anthrax vaccine program has been beset with problems almost

since deputy FDA commissioner Friedman granted a 1997 Pentagon

request to expand its use from protecting people against anthrax infection

in skin wounds to shielding those who breathe it.

In 1998, FDA inspectors halted production until the vaccine's manufacturer,

Michigan-based BioPort Corp. (now an Emergent subsidiary), corrected

deficiencies. Its plant didn't reopen until 2002.

From 1998 to 2000, hundreds of active troops, reservists and National

Guardsmen risked courts- martial by refusing to take anthrax shots for fear

of health problems. Then the 2004 court injunction forced the Pentagon to

shift to a voluntary program. About 50 percent of troops have refused the

shots.

Vaccine critics note that both the VA and the Pentagon have routinely paid

disability benefits to soldiers who blame BioThrax for chronic illnesses,

but they list the ailments as " service-connected " without mentioning the

vaccine.

Virginia attorney s, who has handled a number of claims, said

that way, " they always have plausible deniability. "

*************************************************************

National Vaccine Information Center

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