Military’s Medical Foot-Dragging

It took two decades for the Pentagon to admit that some U.S. soldiers had been exposed to toxic herbicides in Vietnam, and six years to disclose that soldiers in the 1991 Persian Gulf War had been exposed to potentially harmful Iraqi chemical warfare agents. Surely the Pentagon knows by now that such secrecy only stokes fears and undermines morale.

Then again, maybe not. In wrenching testimony to the House subcommittee on national security last week, several military officers described how medical officers at their bases and military officials in Washington had summarily dismissed the chronic health problems they suffered after having received a series of vaccines against the biological warfare agent anthrax.

In one typical instance, Capt. Michelle L. Piel, an Air Force pilot with 13 years of experience, said she developed a host of health problems, including chronic fatigue and joint pain. Though Piel tested positive for a marker for autoimmune disorders, she said doctors failed to record many of her symptoms and dismissed her problems as psychosomatic, suggesting she needed counseling.

Last week, Reps. Benjamin A. Gilman (R-N.Y.) and Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) introduced bills to suspend the mandatory anthrax vaccination program. That extreme step is premature given that evidence of the vaccine’s adverse effects is still anecdotal and the illnesses described are hard to pin down. However, last week’s hearing did highlight the urgent need for Congress to transfer oversight of the vaccine program to two agencies more experienced in monitoring vaccine-related illnesses--the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration.

The agencies should overhaul the Pentagon’s system for recording vaccine-related illnesses, which managed to misplace all 150,000 medical records of troops vaccinated during the Gulf War. And according to the chairman of the House subcommittee, Rep. Christopher Shays (D-Conn.), military doctors tend to attribute illnesses “to coincidence or preexisting conditions in the interest of protecting the anthrax program rather than the patient.”

There’s no direct evidence that the anthrax vaccine is causing any of the medical problems, but it is clear that the administration of the program is fueling mistrust and undermining morale. That’s why the Pentagon should stop its historical stonewalling and begin taking soldiers’ health concerns more seriously.