Anthrax Vaccine Devastated his Health, Army Ranger Tells Committee

By Dave Eberhart

Stars and Stripes Veterans Affairs Editor

April 19, 2001

Washington, D.C.--His Class-A uniform boasting three rows of ribbons, Maj. Jon F. Irelan, an Army Ranger, obviously is a soldier's soldier. "When you're given an order," he told a special committee of the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine April 18, "you suck it up and march on."

But the order that Irelan obeyed was a command to take the military's anthrax inoculations--an order, he says, that has literally cost him his manhood.

Stationed at a lonely outpost in Saudi Arabia, Irelan was given shot number four in the six-shot regime. Shortly afterward he became ill with fatigue, weakness and bouts of perspiration that soaked his battle dress uniform.

Then, one day while showering, he discovered that his testicles had all but disappeared. "The right testicle was the size of a pea, and I couldn't find the left at all," he said.

"I noticed that I was growing a layer of subcutaneous fat and my beard had thinned," he told a silent, attentive audience of doctors and officials. "The damage is permanent. The cells in my body that produce testosterone have been destroyed."

Another witness, Tech. Sgt. Jeffrey Moore, USAF, was almost apologetic as he told his own less dramatic story.

"I was in good health until I took my one and only anthrax shot" on July 27, 1999, Moore said. He said he decided to play it safe and requested a series of tests that would serve as a baseline of his health status. He said he is glad he took the trouble, for by December 1999 the symptoms that had arisen after the injection had gotten worse.

"I started having short-term memory loss. I had dizzy spells followed by complete energy loss. By the end of May 2000, I had two blackouts while driving," he said.

At Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Moore was able--with a diagnosis of autoimmune flare-up compared against his baseline data--to convince authorities to grant him a couple of temporary waivers from the shots. "I have no doubt that had I received more shots my health problems would have been much more severe," he said.

Moore, a C-5 Galaxy loadmaster from Dover AFB, Del., with 18 years of service, ended his timed 10-minute testimony by saying:

"If you are truly sincere about investigating the anthrax vaccine and our illnesses, I am not going to ask you to give 100 percent, or even 500 percent, of yourself. I am asking you to give 1,000 percent. Please show my friends and I that you are part of the solution and not part of the continuing anthrax problem."

Air Force Capt. Jean Tanner, also of Dover AFB, said she and others canvassed the base for statements from men and women who were healthy before the shots and symptomatic afterward.

Tanner gave some examples of the responses:

á        "Not able to remember what I just read."

á        "I used to get one cold per year. Since I had the shots, I've had 8-10 bad colds. One cold got so bad they thought I had spinal meningitis and I had to have a spinal tap."

á        "After driving in a car for one hour, I need to walk to relieve the pain."

á        "Ringing in the ears lasts anywhere from five minutes to a couple of hours."

á        "Numbness in my fingers within one hour after getting the shot."

During discussion, Committee member Dr. Patricia Ferrieri asked, "Aren't you people afraid of retribution for your testimony here?"

Moore said, "I've already been labeled a troublemaker and been passed over for promotion."

Irelan responded by saying that the question of retribution is irrelevant in the face of "a moral imperative."

Source:  http://www.stripes.com/servlet/News/ViewArticle?articleId=100037545&frontpageId=100037554