Anthrax Shots Cause Military Exodus

By Thomas E. Ricks

Washington Post

October 11, 2000; Page A29

The Pentagon's policy of requiring service members to be immunized against anthrax is causing many more pilots to leave the National Guard and Air Force Reserve than the military has acknowledged, according to a report by the General Accounting Office.

The GAO report, which is scheduled to be released today at a hearing of the House Government Reform Committee, says that unhappiness with the mandatory anthrax program is the top reason cited by pilots and other air crew members who have left the Guard and Reserve over the last two years.

The GAO said that in the last five months it surveyed 829 current and former members of the Air Guard and Air Force Reserve. Since September 1998, the GAO said, about 25 percent of pilots and other air crew members, such as navigators and crew chiefs, in the Guard and Reserve have left the military, transferred to other units, usually to nonflying positions, or moved to inactive status. One in four who left said the anthrax program was the most important factor in their decision to leave, the GAO said.

On top of those who already have left, an additional 18 percent who are still in the Guard or Reserve said they plan to leave within the next six months, the GAO said. In that group, 61 percent said the biggest reason for deciding to leave was the anthrax program, the study said.

Overall there are about 176,000 people in the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, of which about 13,000 are pilots or other air crew members.

The Pentagon view of the anthrax controversy has been that while there have been many complaints, few service members actually have left because of it. "I'm sure you can find some individuals who have left the Guard and Reserve rather than proceed with their anthrax vaccination, but I don't think we've considered [it to have] a significant impact," Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman, said yesterday.

The GAO survey tends to confirm anecdotal evidence that the anthrax controversy is having a greater impact than the Pentagon contends. Retired Lt. Col. Tom Heemstra, a former squadron commander in the Indiana Air National Guard who has become an anti-anthrax activist, said that unhappiness with the anthrax program "devastated our unit."

The GAO findings also could have an impact in the current debate over military readiness. The report noted that in recent years the Pentagon has relied heavily on the Guard and Reserve to provide personnel for overseas operations. Twenty percent to 40 percent of pilots patrolling Iraq's no-fly zone are from the Guard or Reserve.

The Pentagon announced the mandatory inoculation policy in December 1997 and began immunizations in August 1998. It aimed to inoculate all 2.4 million people on active duty and in the Guard and Reserve. But several hundred service members have refused to be injected, citing concerns about possible side effects. Several dozen have been court-martialed, and others have been allowed to leave the military.

In July the Pentagon effectively called a cease-fire in the anthrax fight. It said that because of production problems at the sole maker of the vaccine, it would suspend trying to vaccinate all troops for the rest of this year and focus on those serving in Korea and the Persian Gulf, where the military sees the highest risk of a germ attack.