Anthrax Shots Should Be Voluntary, House Panel Says

A House subcommittee Tuesday declared the Pentagon’s anthrax vaccination program an “overwrought” and risky response that may not shield American troops from deadly airborne spores, as intended.

The 80-page report by the national security subcommittee of the Government Reform Committee said that the 2-year-old program should be made voluntary for GIs until a newer and better vaccine can be designed to shield them from germ weapons of potential adversaries, such as Iraq and North Korea.

“At best, the vaccine provides some measure of protection to most who receive it,” said the report. Yet “how much protection is acquired, by whom, for how long . . . are questions the Defense Department answers with an excess of faith but a paucity of science.”

Pentagon officials, while acknowledging that they would prefer an updated vaccine, insisted that the treatment is safe and effective and noted that it has the blessing of the Food and Drug Administration. It would be irresponsible to take no action, they said, in the face of expanding germ arsenals that they believe “rogue” nations are developing.

Unvaccinated troops, if exposed, “would die a horrible death,” said Dr. Sue Bailey, the Pentagon’s top health officer. “It is our mission to protect those forces.”

The report represents a compilation of material from seven hearings conducted by the subcommittee. It was issued by the panel’s GOP majority, which is led by Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.).

With its official imprimatur, the report is likely to deepen the anxieties of troops who already have been alarmed by critical material that has been circulating on the Internet, said some observers. It will “feed the discontent within the services,” predicted Mark Zaid, a Washington attorney and a critic of the program.

The vaccination program, begun in 1998, requires six shots over 18 months to protect against anthrax, a bacterial disease of livestock that can be deadly to humans.

To date, 1.4 million injections have been given to about 400,000 troops. The program ultimately will inoculate 2.4 million active-duty troops and reservists.

So far, 351 members of the military have refused to take the vaccine, Pentagon officials said.

The Pentagon has had 620 reports of adverse reactions after inoculations, it said. These include 106 cases in which troops have missed a day of work and 26 cases in which servicemen or women were hospitalized. But of these 26 cases, in only six was it clear that the illness was caused by the vaccine, officials said.

The subcommittee report charged that the Pentagon’s reporting system is not set up in a way that allows it to detect all health problems that may have resulted from the injections.

The program “is predisposed to ignore or understate potential safety programs,” the report said, calling the Pentagon’s figures “preposterously low.”

The panel contended that, even though the vaccine has been in use for 25 years, it was not designed to combat airborne anthrax but only infections caused by handling of contaminated objects. And until an attack has occurred, it said, its protection against airborne anthrax spores remains unproved.

In addition, the report said, the vaccine is not needed for 2.4 million troops. “Born of a post-Persian Gulf War panic over apparent weakness in chemical and biological warfare defenses,” the program is “an unmanageably broad military undertaking,” it said.

It also contended that the vaccine program, despite its size, is a germ “Maginot line” that would help against only one type of germ attack when adversaries may be working on many.

But Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Randy West, the Pentagon’s special advisor on germ weapons, said that the threat from anthrax is especially important because a number of countries have anthrax weapons or are trying to get them.

He said he was “disappointed” by what he said was incorrect information in the report and he worries that it could damage morale.

The Pentagon has identified 10 countries that have anthrax weapons, or are developing germ weapon programs: China, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, South Korea, Syria, Taiwan and Russia.