Protest Grows Against Use Of Anthrax Vaccine

by Peter Gorner

Chicago Tribune

May 17, 2000

In an increasingly bitter battle pitting human rights against military discipline, two dozen House members have signed a letter demanding that Defense Secretary William Cohen bring an "immediate halt" to the mandatory anthrax vaccination program.

The letter written by Rep. Jack Metcalf (R-Wash.) points to several recent findings and criticisms against the program to inoculate all 2.4 million U.S. military personnel against anthrax, a deadly livestock disease that can be passed on to humans and has long been considered the major terrorist threat in biological warfare.

The letter adds to the woes of the U.S. military establishment, which is being rebuffed by medical science, chastened by experts, and--most importantly--challenged by its own troops.

President Clinton and military leaders are requiring full compliance with the effort to use a 30-year-old vaccine that was never designed for airborne anthrax.

But Vice President Al Gore recently broke ranks, calling for "careful evaluation" of whether the program should be mandatory. A report to Congress issued March 30 by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences said, "There is a paucity of published peer-reviewed literature of the safety of anthrax vaccine."

At the request of the Defense Department, the institute looked for studies on the vaccine's long-term effects, but researchers could find only one report they considered up to scientific standards. The study showed no unusual medical problems for those receiving the vaccination. But researchers noted the study followed only those who continued to work at a military base--in theory, those who stayed healthy.

So far, 570,000 military personnel have received at least the first shot of a six-shot series over two years.

In the meantime, opponents have collected testimony from thousands of personnel fearful for their careers. They have cited a vast range of problems: aches and pains, chills, fever, rashes and nausea; but also heart stoppages, leukemia and neurological problems that won't go away.

After defense lawyers representing recalcitrant troops recently forced their hand, military officials conceded that as many as one-third of all personnel may suffer severe short-term reactions to the vaccine.

Previously, the Defense Department had cited a rate of adverse reactions that was so low--a scant 0.2 percent--as to be meaningless.

More than 300 service members have refused the mandatory inoculations,citing health concerns. Some objectors have been prosecuted; others have quit.

The Pentagon insists it is concerned only with protecting U.S. troops against what Defense Department spokesmen have called "the No. 1 agent we need to protect against."

Iraq and at least nine other nations have anthrax weapons and could unleash the germs of war, officials say, speculating that a single Iraqi aircraft equipped with tanks spraying anthrax bacteria near southern Iraq could imperil Kuwait and northern Saudi Arabia within hours.

But the lack of solidly documented historical precedent for such behavior by any nation--and the profound response it would likely provoke--are cited by critics as reasons to stop the vaccination program.

To the embarrassment of military and civilian leaders, the program has prompted mistrust and vocal opposition from U.S. service personnel, particularly pilots, many of them combat veterans and seasoned officers. They are leaving the service rather than accept a vaccine they believe is unsafe.

"The benefits of the vaccine may exceed the risks. We don't know. But it's peacetime, we have the time to find out," said Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who has represented several vaccine protesters. "And the young men who have been disciplined for refusing the vaccine have federal convictions on their records. That's not right."

On May 7, a Canadian air force sergeant's court-martial was dismissed by that country's chief military judge, who ruled that the vaccine used in 1998 in Kuwait could have been unsafe and that to be forced to take it could be viewed as a violation of basic human rights.

The sergeant had resigned after 26 years in an attempt to avoid court-martial and to end the matter, but the government decided to pursue the case anyway.

The vaccine is made by growing a weakened strain of anthrax bacteria, killing it and filtering out a protein called protective antigen, or PA. The antigen causes the body to develop a resistance to the lethal toxins produced by anthrax, but no standard exists for the amount of PA needed to produce immunity.

A leader of the resistance says she is mystified by the anthrax vaccine.

"I think this vaccine is extraordinarily unusual. It is different from all licensed vaccines in the U.S. and it causes a high rate of bad illnesses, which at first you don't believe are vaccine-induced illnesses," said Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist from Freeport, Maine, who has been waging a campaign against the vaccine for a decade.

A former consultant to the government on the vaccine, she recently has been collecting complaints from personnel that they won't report to their military doctors because they fear being labeled hysterical.

"When people contacted me in 1998 and said they had bloody diarrhea or were vomiting blood or had pimples on their body after getting a rash, I told them they had something else. Vaccines don't do that.

"But since then, so many people have related the symptoms to me that I realize this vaccine does do that," said Nass.

"I can't tell you why, but I've combed through the human and veterinary literature and found that similar reactions have been documented in the veterinary literature.

"I've averaged three calls or e-mails a day for two years. Sometimes I have as many as 30 calls in a day. Many people break down on the phone when they describe their symptoms. We need some population-based studies, the government has absolutely refused to do them."

As the mysteries of biological agents mount, there is a plea for facts and hard scientific data and a realistic appraisal of what is known, versus what is feared. The military may have overreacted and come up with a vaccine as an answer to a biological threat that may never happen.

"But I wouldn't want to be the commander who exposed his men to anthrax and they weren't vaccinated," said Harvard University biochemist and biological warfare expert Matthew Meselson.

"I think the reason for the vaccine program is that simple."

Meselson, one of the fathers of molecular biology, also is the only pioneer in genetics who has devoted himself for decades to ending the threat posed by the hostile use of biotechnology. He advocates international laws classifying such use as a crime against humanity.

"The proper response to biological warfare is not a vaccine but a gas mask or encapsulation in a protected vehicle, such as a tank," says Meselson, who believes the vaccination program should be limited to troops most likely to confront anthrax and even then it should be voluntary, not mandatory.

Although biological terrorism by amateurs is always possible, that possibility doesn't keep him up nights.

"As biotechnology becomes the dominant industry of this century, there may be something deep in our genes that makes us resist the idea of using biological weapons in warfare," he said.

"Even a pacifist can see the beauty in a well-crafted weapon--a rifle, an arrow, even a nuclear missile. But there's nothing beautiful about a flask of plague."