Technology Review October 2001 (Alumni Section) p.2

Anthrax Threat Is Real

THE ANTHRAX VACCINE, FORTUNATELY, has only caused illness in a minority of recipients, and I am glad Lieutenant Colonel Garigan (“Alumni Feedback’ TR July/August 2001) is not one of them. However, his bland assertions of safety for the anthrax vaccine do not square with the evidence.

A U.S. General Accounting Office report to Congress of October 2000 noted that 60 percent of those who developed illnesses following vacci­nation did not report

their illness to a military treatment facility, pre­sumably because illness in military service mem­bers may lead to loss of career.

This may have skewed other military statistics, which show a statistically significant, strong nega­tive correlation between receiving anthrax vac­cine and both outpatient visits and hos­pitalizations in military medical facili­ties. The Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program Agency has made these data available.

Were these statistics truly accurate, anthrax vaccine would be the most effec­tive health promoter known to man. Obviously, that is not the case.

In fact, every one of five studies that looked has now found that there is a relationship between receiving anthrax vaccine, or specific-deployment vaccines, and developing symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome. These studies were done by five separate groups of researchers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

The U.S. Department of Defense stopped all routine vaccinations of ser­vicemembers for the simple reason that

the U.S. Food and Drug Administra­tion has quarantined nearly all existing vaccine and has still not allowed the renovated vaccine-manufacturing fa­cility to reopen, two years after renova­tions were completed. The current plan for treatment in the event of anthrax attack is use of antibiotics (known to be an effective treatment when adminis­tered early) and possibly postexposure vaccination. Postexposure vaccination, using informed consent, is the only proper way to use this poorly manu­factured and untested vac­cine.

Time will tell whether it is I, or Lieutenant Colonel Garigan, who is misin­formed about the safety of this product.

MERYL NASS ‘72

Freeport, ME