Events back Buck on using antibiotics
Anthrax vaccine no longer being made
By RENI WINTER
THE SUN HERALD (Biloxi, MS)
Oct 20, 2001

A year ago, when Air Force Capt. John Buck refused an anthrax vaccination before deploying to the Middle East, he offered to go without taking the shot, armed with antibiotics instead.

Buck, an emergency room physician at Keesler Medical Center at Keesler Air Force Base, tried to convince his superiors that antibiotics would be adequate protection against the potentially fatal disease.

The Department of Defense, sticking by its mandatory Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program, asserted that the vaccine was the only acceptable protection against the bio-warfare agent.

But that was before the threat became a reality, not only for the military but in the lives of the American public.

Now, five months after the Air Force found Buck guilty of refusing the order to take the injection, government health officials have nothing but antibiotics to use against a growing number of anthrax cases among civilians around the country. The vaccine the government used is no longer manufactured.

Dozens of people have been exposed to the deadly bacteria and are being successfully treated with the very medicine that Buck and others in the military were denied.

"Six months ago, instead of court-martialing Buck, the DOD should have taken a step back and re-evaluated the program," said Maj. Thomas L. Rempfer, a member of the Air Force Reserves who is on a personal mission to get the vaccine program corrected or abolished.

He is one of several authors of a 30-page citizens petition to the Food and Drug Administration against the drug, made by BioPort, a Michigan firm.

"We didn't do it right for the troops," Rempfer said. "We need to do it right for the American people.

"During Buck's court-martial, the 32-year-old doctor set out to prove that the order to take the vaccine was unlawful, partially because the vaccine was and remains an experimental drug.

Federal laws require that experimental drugs be given on a voluntary basis and that a recipient be informed of possible side effects.

Lt. Col. Mark Allred, the military judge who presided at Buck's trial, refused to allow any evidence that would have proven the order illegal.

Opponents of the vaccine use government records to prove it is experimental, showing that it was used in a manner inconsistent with its original licensing.

The vaccine was developed to prevent cutaneous anthrax, contracted through the skin and easily cured. The military used it to guard against inhalation anthrax, contracted by inhaling and very lethal.

Opponents also contend that the original license never should have been granted.Buck, who still practices emergency medicine at Keesler, was the first military doctor to be court-martialed and convicted for refusing the vaccine.

Many military members have faced fines, prison terms and expulsion from the military for refusing the vaccine. Others who took it have said they suffer severe, long-term side effects.