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'A prisoner in his own body' -- After taking
the anthrax vaccine, Tom Colosimo's health and spirit quickly
started to deteriorate |
By David Castellon
Times staff
writer
SUGAR GROVE, Pa.; Thomas J. Colosimo joined the Air
Force nearly 11 years ago dreaming of seeing the world and building
a strong future for himself. Now, he wonders if he has a future at
all.
Still just 29 years old, his once-powerful physique is
so withered and frail he must walk with a cane. His boyish looks are
marred by bruises and scars, the result of the falls he takes when
he unexpectedly passes out. It's gotten so bad he's resorted to
wearing a hockey helmet around the house.
Life for Colosimo
consists of sitting and eating. He sleeps poorly, lives in dread of
moments when he slips into delirium, he stumbles over words, his
body fails him daily. He has become, he says, a prisoner in his own
body.
But unlike sufferers of the mysterious Gulf War
illness, whose doctors can't pinpoint a specific cause for their
maladies, Colosimo has medical problems linked to the anthrax
vaccine, as publicly acknowledged by Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Randy
West, senior adviser to the deputy secretary of defense for chemical
and biological protection.
A ruined life
Colosimo was a senior airman at Hill Air Force Base, Utah,
when he got his first shot in 1998. He would receive three more over
the next 19 months.
"I went to the Middle East eight times,"
he said. "That's when I expected something bad to happen to me, not
in a clinic in Utah."
Colosimo doesn't blame the Air Force
for his plight, but he does blame the Defense Department policy
makers who made the shots mandatory for all troops in the late
1990s.
Because of shortages of the vaccine, the list of
members currently required to get the shots has been trimmed several
times, so that today, only people involved in vaccine manufacturing,
military research and congressionally mandated studies, and
"special-mission" units that would respond to anthrax incidents have
to get vaccinated.
But as soon as more vaccine is available,
program officials say the mandatory-inoculation effort will resume.
They say the vaccine is safe and effective, and insist that allergic
reactions are no more common with this vaccine than with any other.
Good days, bad days, no work
That doesn't
matter much to Colosimo. The fact that thousands of others have
taken the shots with no ill effects doesn't help his situation. "I
never thought I'd get social security at age 28. I never thought I'd
never be able to work again."
Even on "good days," it's hard
just to leave the house. Mildly hot weather can make him pass out.
Once an amateur weightlifting competitor, Colosimo now gets winded
pulling his wheelchair out of his pickup truck.
Today is a
bad day. A fresh red scar extending above his right eye reminds him
why.
The injury happened two nights ago, probably from a
fall. Colosimo can't remember exactly what happened, a common
occurrence these days. His wife, Tracy, said she woke up in the
morning to find her husband's face caked with dry blood and his
right eye swollen shut. A trip to the emergency room revealed he'd
suffered a concussion, too.
Colosimo's good days have been
few and far between since he received his fourth anthrax vaccination
in September 1999, the same month he married Tracy. Three months
later, he began suffering from fatigue, sores on his head, tunnel
vision and his first blackouts. To date, he's blacked out more than
700 times.
His symptoms now include bouts of delirium, panic
attacks, explosive and unexpected loss of bowel control, low blood
pressure, depression, memory loss, cognitive difficulties and
chronic fatigue.
Colosimo said he also suffers from sleep
apnea, which causes him to stop breathing in his sleep up to 60
times an hour. So he must sleep with an electronic device over his
nose that senses when he stops breathing and forces air into his
lungs.
Then there are the side effects of the many
medications Colosimo takes to control his primary medical problems.
Tracy Colosimo said that a steroid her husband takes to elevate his
blood pressure has rendered him impotent now, and eventually "he'll
become sterile."
"I can't have sex now anyway," Tom Colosimo
said, the hurt in his voice mirroring the wounds on his face. "I've
been fighting this so long." Tightening the grip on his cane, he
searched in vain for the right words.
"It's been so long
dealing with anger now, I've accepted it. When I put my anger aside,
I feel better," he said. His eyes welled with tears.
After
that fourth shot, Colosimo's health deteriorated so rapidly that he
soon was unable to do his job as a nondestructive aircraft
inspection journeyman.
He spent most workdays behind a desk
because his co-workers feared he'd pass out on the job and get
seriously hurt.
By August 2000, Colosimo and his family had
complained so much and so loudly that he was sent from Utah to
Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He was admitted
for "anthrax intoxication," according to hospital records.
Two months later, the Defense Department admitted that
Colosimo's illness was a result of his inoculations. For the first
time, the government had publicly acknowledged the shots had caused
serous health problems for a service member.
Under
questioning in October 2000 by members of Congress about reported
health problems among people who received anthrax vaccinations, West
said of Colosimo, "that of all the people that were here today,
there was only one person that has a medical diagnosis that directly
links it to the vaccine, and that was only a portion of his medical
problems."
Defense Department statistics compiled through
June 5 list only 14 people whose "serious adverse events" certainly
were caused by the shots, while two other cases were listed as
probably being caused by the vaccine. That's out of 1,578 people who
reported mild to serious health problems to the Vaccine Adverse
Event Reporting System.
The Anthrax Vaccine Expert
Committee, which makes the determinations, lists cases as "serious"
that involve death, hospitalization, life-threatening illness or
permanent disability.
Of the 16 cases, all the people are
listed as having returned to duty and none are listed as being
medically retired due to their ailments. Colosimo is not on the list
despite West's testimony.
"I think they're trying to make
the vaccine seem safer than it really is," Colosimo said of the
numbers. He estimated that he and his family alone have corresponded
with at least 100 people suffering serious health problems they
believe are due to the vaccine.
"Somebody has to be with
Tom constantly"
Colosimo's emotions run the gamut.
Sometimes he's sad; sometimes he's angry.
"Some days I feel
like I'm getting better, and some days I feel like I'm getting
worse," Colosimo said while sitting in his mother's home in
northwest Pennsylvania July 9. "I've come close to suicide, but I
lacked the guts to pull the trigger. I've stopped taking my
medication hoping it will end."
Colosimo was granted medical
retirement from the Air Force in January with 60 percent disability.
That means he gets $812 a month, less than half his E-4 pay. Car
payments, child support for a daughter not living with him and
health-insurance co-payments gobble up more than half of each check.
"That's not enough for us to get a place of our own,"
Colosimo said.
Tracy Colosimo can't get a job because
"somebody has to be with Tom constantly." So he and his wife divide
their time between their parents' homes in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
"If not for our parents, we'd be out on the streets," she
said.
Neighbors in the close-knit community here, along
with others who have heard of Colosimo's plight, have raised $10,000
for him, and he solicits donations to help with his medical care on
his personal Web site at http://www.tomcolosimo.com.
Colosimo said he desperately wants a job but, on most days,
his condition allows him to leave the house only for short periods.
And the smells of cleaners, colognes, paint and other items that he
might encounter in public places can trigger his bouts of delirium.
Nights are particularly stressful for Tracy and her in-laws
because Colosimo sleeps only one to four hours at night. When he
gets up, he might pass out or slip into delirium and wander outside
like a sleepwalker while the family sleeps on unknowingly.
Tracy said police search teams have found Tom bloody and
covered with his own vomit and feces; another time he was found
bruised, badly cut and unconscious on a country road.
"Thank
God nobody ran over him," Tracy Colosimo said.
Tom
grudgingly lives with the pain and scars of such incidents. But it's
been harder to live with the indignity he feels afterward.
It's worse when he loses bowel control or passes out in a
public place.
He sighs in frustration trying to explain how
it all makes him feel, but then slumps his shoulders and he looks to
his wife. She sums it up for him: "Do you know how embarrassing it
is to wake up with 50 people around you?"
And even at home
it's not much better.
"A lot of times, it feels like she's
my caretaker, not my wife," Colosimo said of Tracy. "We don't even
do things that couples do. The only excitement we have is when a new
movie comes out [on video] or eating."
Oddly, cigarette
smoke hasn't been a problem, so smoking is one of his few pleasures.
And while it's unhealthy, Tracy Colosimo said doctors haven't tried
to make Tom quit because it helps elevate his low blood pressure,
the cause of his blackouts.
"A cigarette and a can of Coke
can really get his pressure up."
Colosimo said working on
his Web site on a neighbor's computer is one of the few things that
makes him feel productive. On it, he details his health problems
since taking the anthrax vaccine and shares information with other
current and former military members concerned about the anthrax
vaccine.
The site has had more than 2,600 visitors.
"There's someone out there like them that's sick. They're
not alone or a freak," Colosimo said. "It's nice to know you're not
the only one out there fighting this.
"Sometimes I read what
these other people are going through, and I realize there are people
a lot worse off than me" he said, noting one female Army helicopter
pilot he met at Walter Reed who was so emaciated she was down to 70
pounds.
"She says that when she swallows crackers, it' like
swallowing razor blades," Colosimo said.
He's also
personally taken his message to lawmakers, having testified before
the House Committee on Government Reform in October and in June to
state legislators in Massachusetts, who are considering a bill that
would protect Massachusetts National Guard members from having to
get anthrax vaccinations.
Colosimo said he sees the effort
in Massachusetts as the best shot to stop mandatory vaccinations
because other states might follow suit.
"It's just a matter
of time before they get [the vaccine production line] up and
running, and there are 18 more biological-warfare vaccines and an
AIDS vaccine in the works," he said. "I feel that if we make enough
noise and get enough people together, we will win."
Later,
after her husband goes to take a nap, Tracy Colosimo laments the
change in her husband from a vibrant young man to one worn out and
embittered by his ailments. "He was upbeat and very friendly, just
the person everyone wanted to be around."
Once an active
couple, usually spending evenings at the gym and weekends hiking or
doing other outdoor activities, today they are homebodies.
"He's depressed most of the time," she said. "It just seems
like he lives in a shell because he's afraid he'll be hurt or fall
in public.
"It eats at him to not be the man he once was and
be able to do the things he did. he's lost his sense of self."
Battling for care and support
Colosimo's
mother, Gloria Graham, said she and Tom's stepfather are feeling the
strain of having four people living in their small house.
"It's a miracle my husband and I are still married," she
said. "He didn't plan on marrying me and my adult children."
Though her son is stoic in discussing his health problems
and his treatment by the Defense Department, Graham isn't so quiet.
She picketed an Air Force recruiting office in August 2000,
getting media attention that she believes prompted the Air Force to
send Colosimo to Walter Reed.
But it's been a struggle ever
since, Colosimo said.
Colosimo said he had to fight to get
Walter Reed to provide him a cane and the helmet, and he couldn't
get a military lawyer to represent him when it came time for the Air
Force to decide on his disability.
Calls by Air Force Times
to Walter Reed were not returned.
Colosimo had to hire a
private lawyer to take his case. His mother mortgaged her house to
cover the fee, but the lawyer declined payment.
Colosimo won
only partial disability retirement pay because the service didn't
factor all his problems into the decision. His chemical sensitivity,
bowel problems and "adjustment disorder mixed with anxiety and
depression" were not factored in, according to recommendations of
the Air Force physical-evaluation board that considered his case.
Colosimo applied to receive disability compensation benefits
from the Department of Veterans Affairs which he believes would
cover those conditions the Air Force doesn‰'t and grant him full
disability pay in lieu of retirement pay.
Jim Moreino,
veterans service center manager for a regional VA office, said July
24 that a decision on Colosimo's disability could be rendered within
a week.
If Colosimo gets the full disability benefit, he'd
receive about $2,200 a month and possibly $300 to $400 more for his
wife, a stipend for being Tom's caregiver.
In addition, he'd
get a lump-sum payment of the difference between his VA benefits and
what he got from the Air Force since January.
"If that
happened, we could get what we really want," Colosimo said.
His wife finished the sentence for him: "independence."
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