Outreach Efforts

Public Education and Outreach Efforts

The Anthrax Vaccine Network's activities to date have included the following:

  • Introduction of ill troops to each other for support and advice

  • Design, development and hosting of this web site

  • Production and distribution of a monthly newsletter

  • Initial planning and support for a protest rally originally scheduled for Sept. 15, 2001, in Lansing, Michigan, then re-scheduled and held on Nov. 11, 2001

  • Full media relations work after Sept. 11, handling media queries from around the country and overseas, and matching their requests up with various ill troops or people knowledgeable about the AVIP. Interviews appeared in a wide variety of media including the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the San Jose Mercury News, "EXTRA," the TV newsmagazine, Geraldo Live!, ABC's Good Morning America, and the German equivalent of 60 Minutes, among others. Local stories centered around sick troops in various communities, as well as the formation of the Anthrax Vaccine Network, Inc.

  • Membership recruitment

  • Referrals to legal, medical and information sources for troops and veterans

  • Information provided to members of Congress, through letters, personal contacts, and visits to congressional offices in Washington, D.C.

  • Information provided to the postal workers unions in New York and Washington, D.C., and to Congressional staffers about the dangers of the vaccine offered by the CDC

  • Maintenance of a data base with names and address of members, but also with information on symptoms, illnesses and associated vaccine lot numbers

    IN PROCESS: development and printing of a "scrapbook" with stories and photos of sick troops and veterans, to make them real and human to those in authority.

    UPCOMING AND ONGOING TASKS:
    - pressure Congress to change the laws by which the Pentagon must abide

    - pressure the FDA to respond quickly to the Citizen Petition which calls for
    1) finalizing the ruling regarding the vaccine;
    2) having the FDA enforce its own policies, rules and regulations;
    3) declaring all stockpiled doses of the vaccine adulterated, and
    4) revoking the license of BioPort to manufacture the vaccine;

    - pressure Congress and the President for a presumptive Line of Duty related to certain injuries and illnesses connected with the anthrax vaccine (that such injuries and illness are presumed to have come about in the line of duty while serving in the armed forces);

    - garner public opinion to protest the legislation in Congress calling for mandatory bioterrorism vaccines for the entire population;

    - pass legislation through Congress which calls for no punishment for anyone refusing the anthrax vaccine, and for informed consent of all such Investigational New Drugs;

    - push to obtain immediate and adequate medical care for sick troops;

    - push to have the records of all vaccine refusers cleared, and let them be reinstated into the armed forces if they so desire;

    - work to overturn the Feres Doctrine, which has the tragic effect of giving the Dept. of Defense a green light to conduct medical experiments on the troops.

    Please contact us at contact@anthraxvaccine.net for specific ideas on how you can help in your own community. Thank you!
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