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Should the lack of weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq cause the Pentagon to reconsider its mandatory anthrax vaccination program?
As far as we know, there is less anthrax in Iraq than in the U.S. army biodefense facility at Ft. Detrick, Maryland that the FBI believes was the original source of the anthrax that killed five people in October 2001. After all, David Kay and his team of CIA sleuths have been searching suspected Iraqi weapons sites for months, at the cost of tens of millions of dollars, without so much as finding an envelope full of anthrax (although apparently they did find a jar of botulinum toxin in the refrigerator of a retired Iraqi weapons scientist who reported that after the program was dismantled in the early 1990s he did not know where else to safely dispose of the toxin).
The apparent lack of weaponized anthrax in Iraq gives rise to a question. Just why are US soldiers forced still to undergo vaccinations for bioweapons that apparently we civilians in the US are as likely to be exposed to opening our mail as they are being deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq? Is the Pentagon wedded to an anthrax vaccination program that is based on a threat perception that has proven false?
Critics of the program say yes. And on Tuesday, they are slated to get a voice of support, from New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman.
"Mr. President, throughout the conflict in Iraq, our brave soldiers have have carried out their duties with strength, with honor, and with courage...That is why I am so troubled that our current Department of Defense policies may be failing them, with grievous consequences...I rise today to introduce a Sense of the Senate that asks for some changes to the current smallpox and anthrax immunization programs. Specifically it asks the Secretary of Defense to:
· Reconsider the mandatory nature of its smallpox and anthrax vaccine immunization programs pending the development of new and better vaccines that are currently under development;
· Reconsider adverse actions taken against servicemembers on the basis of refusal to take the smallpox or anthrax vaccines; and,
· Reevaluate, with the Intelligence community, the current threat of anthrax and smallpox attacks on our troops, in an effort to reflect current operational realities when considering the continuation of a mandatory vaccination program."
Etc.
Critics of the mandatory military vaccination program say the vaccine has sickened some soldiers, and what's more, that the Defense Department has relentlessly moved to quash any evidence of it, including denying military health benefits to some veterans who believe they were disabled by the vaccine.
But last week, "a panel of scientists from the [US] government's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and Armed Forces Epidemiology Board said the evidence 'strongly favors' the theory that vaccination led to the death...of a 22-year-old female soldier who died last spring after getting multiple vaccines...The woman received smallpox, typhoid, anthrax, hepatitis B and measles-mumps-rubella vaccine on March 2. On April 4, she died of lung complications caused by an acute attack of the autoimmune disease lupus."
While soldiers are required to get the vaccinations, most civilians don't even have access to those same vaccines -- even though it was civilian postal workers, media staff, and Congressional staff that bore the brunt of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks. By and large, Americans are not rushing to get vaccinated for anthrax, even after the 2001 anthrax attacks. After all, quick post-exposure courses of antibiotics proved very effective in saving lives of those exposed.
So after the very real 2001 anthrax attacks didn't send Americans rushing for anthrax vaccine, after the plan to vaccinate US front line health workers against small pox has petered out, after no WMD have been found in Iraq, and after it seems at least some US soldiers have been sickened, even killed, by effects from the vaccinations, is the Pentagon reconsidering its vaccination program?
No. Assistant secretary of defense for health affairs William Winkenwerder Jr. told the Washington Post that "there are no plans to change the vaccination program."
Is this just another "weapons" program that constituencies in and out of the Pentagon have become so wedded to, the DOD refuses to change course? It seems so.
On the other hand, another bio attack States-side could send Americans flying to get the vaccine for themselves. Perhaps that's what the perpetrator of the 2001 attacks intended.