Arming Against Anthrax

Anthrax anxiety -- it has a nation on edge.

Wish you could be vaccinated against the potentially deadly virus?

John Ritchie of Dudley, Massachusetts received the vaccine in 1999 when he was 38 years old. He had to as a member of the Air Force Reserves. Two days later he fell ill with flu-like symptoms. Within the next week, an onslaught of other health problems appeared.

"The headaches, blurred vision, dizziness, muscle and joint ache, the chronic fatigue. I mean, it felt like I had been run over by a Mack truck," Ritchie says.

Some of those symptoms stayed permanently, while others come back from time to time. Ritchie says some doctors have told him the vaccine must have triggered his health problems.

The anthrax vaccine was approved in 1970. But government documents Fox 61 obtained show about 1700 people have reported reactions to it. A congressional report says the vaccine is still being studied as a potential cause of Gulf War Syndrome.

Major Tom Rempfer, one of eight pilots who had to quit their positions in the Connecticut Air National Guard because they refused to take the shots, says the vaccine is experimental because it was never properly studied and approved. Studies on the original vaccine -- which was then modified before approval -- only showed it was effective against cutaneous anthrax, not inhalation. By law, military members can't be forced to take experimental vaccines or drugs.

"The policy, process and the paperwork that's been uncovered actually reveals a willful circumvention of the law," Rempfer said.

Through the 1980's and early 1990's the Department of Defense and Food and Drug Administration repeatedly stated such things as, "There is no vaccine in current use which will safely and effectively protect military personnel", "The vaccine is highly reactogenic" and "efficacy against inhalation anthrax is not well documented." They sought proposals for a new vaccine then tried to get the current vaccine approved on an investigational basis for inhalation anthrax, but no one ever acted on those proposals.

Then in the late 1990s tensions were mounting over biological and chemical weapons plants in Iraq.

"The message changed and people were told that this vaccine would basically be the only thing that would stand between the servicemembers and sure death," Rempfer told Fox 61.

Officials in the Department of Defense and Connecticut National Guard refused to be interviewed for Fox 61's Special Assignment report. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has repeatedly written to both, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, urging them to stop the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP).

"We don't have a safe and effective vaccine that's available to our general public or our military," Blumenthal said. "Our military men and women have been compelled to in effect be guinea pigs."

A report by a congressional subcommittee led by Connecticut Congressman Christopher Shays sharply criticized AVIP, saying the program is "far more concerned with public relations than effective force protection or the practice of medicine."

Lansing, Michigan-based Bioport Corporation bought the vaccine license and factory in 1998. The previous manufacturer had shut it down after several years of failed F.D.A. quality-control inspections. Bioport re-built the labs and is now seeking F.D.A. approval to resume distributing the vaccine.

"We feel very confident that we've met the rigorous high standards of the agency," said Kim Brennen Root, a company spokesperson. Brennen Root added the F.D.A. and C.D.C. have repeatedly said the vaccine is safe and effective. She also insisted it was designed and licensed to protect against all forms of anthrax.

If the plant gets the go-ahead from the F.D.A., the military could start vaccinating troops again with the same vaccine formula. Rempfer, the former Connecticut Guard pilot who's now in the Reserves, has filed a Citizen Petition with the F.D.A. in hopes of blocking further distribution of the vaccine.

Ritchie hopes no more servicemembers will have to go through what he's experiencing.

"If I could go back to June 5th 1999 and change it, I wouldn't have gotten the shot. My life hasn't been the same since then," he said.