Ill captain blames anthrax

By JOHN F. LAUERMAN

Springfield (MA) Union-News

Friday, April 20, 2001

 Where did his health go? That's the question plaguing Capt. Jason M. Nietupski of Longmeadow. Since last year when he received an experimental anthrax vaccine, he has experienced medical problems so serious, they have compelled state Rep. Mary S. Rogeness, R-Longmeadow, to try to prohibit the vaccine's use in Massachusetts.

Nietupski, an Army veteran now in the Air National Guard, received the vaccine in February 2000 before going on a joint exercise with Korean military forces. If he had somehow encountered a device laced with anthrax, a lethal bacteria believed to be used in biological weapons, the vaccine could have saved his life.

Instead, the vaccine itself is making him miserable, he said. Before receiving his third scheduled booster in March 2000, Nietupski's mouth erupted with sores. He has since been diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, liver damage, and blood clots deep in his leg.

 "He was a top-notch military man," said Rogeness. "Pretty immediately after receiving the injection his health was compromised and has not improved."

Nietupski said he has seen 30 doctors since receiving the vaccine a little more than a year ago, and most of them, including the Army's own doctors, concur that his symptoms are somehow linked to the vaccine.

What bothers him most, though, is that the Department of Defense refuses to take the problem, or him, seriously.

In March, when he went to the Northampton Veterans Affairs Medical Center with swelling in his leg, a physician commented that he was concentrating too much on his medical problems and needed to relax.

Later he was found to have blood clots in his leg, called deep venous thromboses, that could have life-threatening implications. Nietupski said he still takes blood-thinners to prevent clot formation.

Critics of the Army's anthrax program, who believe there may be thousands of recruits affected like Nietupski, point out that the vaccine has not yet received federal Food and Drug Administration approval, but Army personnel are not permitted to refuse it.

Rogeness' bill, which she filed after hearing about Nietupski's case, would prohibit the use of any non-FDA-approved vaccine on members of the military in Massachusetts.

"We're trying to override federal regulations, and help out people serving the state," Rogeness said.

In February the Pentagon rejected the call by a panel from the U.S. House of Representatives calling for a halt in inoculations, saying that the threat is real and the vaccine is safe.

Sue Baily, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said at that time that 400,000 troops had been inoculated. Of those, 620 reported adverse reactions, 26 were hospitalized and only six of those were known to be related to the vaccine. The goal is to vaccinate all 2.4 million members of the active and reserve military, Bailey said.

Members of the Air National Guard's 104th Tactical Fighter wing based in Westfield received shots in May before heading to Kuwait to fly missions over southern Iraq.

Cases like Nietupski's have sparked an outcry in the military and civilian worlds. At an Institute of Medicine panel meeting Wednesday in Washington, D.C., Air Force Capt. John E. Buck, a physician about to be court-martialed because of his refusal to take the vaccine, charged that the compulsory vaccination program amounts to an experiment without the subjects' consent.

"The DoD (Department of Defense) has chosen to use our profession as a tool to achieve its military objectives," he said, "and in doing so, has severely compromised the practice of medicine."

Meanwhile, Nietupski said the Veterans Administration is ignoring his requests for disability payments, and his plea that it put an end to the vaccine program.

"What has happened to me should remain a testament to bad military policy and poor medical research," he said.
   

Source:
http://www.masslive.com/newsindex/index.ssf?/news/pstories/ae420ant.html