U.S., British Troops Concerned by Anthrax Vaccine/British Terror Police Hunt for Deadly Poison

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Posted on Wed, Jan. 08, 2003

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/4899745.htm

U.S., British Troops Concerned by Anthrax Vaccine

BY PAUL MAJENDIE

Reuters

 

LONDON - U.S. and British troops who may be sent to war in Iraq say they have

suffered potentially deadly side-effects from the anthrax vaccine they are

being offered -- but defense officials insist it is safe.

 

Veterans groups on both sides of the Atlantic say up to one in three soldiers

has fallen ill after taking the vaccine and six of them died in the United

States.

 

But British Undersecretary of State for Defense Lewis Moonie said there was no

cause for alarm. " It has been given to many, many people over a long period of

time and there has never been a case of serious side-effects. Not one case, " he

said.

 

British soldiers are now raising the anthrax alarm in calls to the National

Gulf Veterans and Families Association, set up after the last Iraqi conflict

sparked claims that thousands of soldiers were suffering from " Gulf War

Syndrome. "

 

" We have hard facts, " said Association treasurer James Moore. " Two and Three

Parachute Regiments have had anthrax injections. At least a third come down

with flu-like symptoms and have been very poorly.

 

" If I was going out, there is no way I would have the vaccine. There is a

minuscule risk of being exposed to anthrax. I think Saddam Hussein would more

likely use mustard gas rather than something as unreliable as anthrax, " he told

Reuters.

 

" In the United States, over 30 percent have come down with symptoms and six

have died after taking the vaccine, " he said.

 

Moore's concerns were echoed by Joyce Riley of the American Gulf War

Association who told BBC Radio: " My concern about the anthrax vaccine is that

it has proved to be unsafe. It is not a tested vaccine.

 

" What we are seeing from those who have been given the vaccine is usually

something to do with blackouts, with seizures and motor problems. We are

finding that these people become affected by skin lesions, they develop sores

and problems that just never go away. "

 

But Moonie stoutly defended the inoculations. " I can assure you the vaccine is

safe. It has side-effects -- all vaccines like this do, " he said.

 

" You may get soreness at the site of injection and you may get a flu-like

illness after it. But there are no serious complications, " he added.

 

The mistrust of veterans still runs deep after years of battling over " Gulf War

Syndrome. "

 

But neither the United States nor Britain accepts that a direct link has been

established between the 1991 war and the syndrome, even though they have spent

more than $300 million researching possible causes.

 

Veterans' groups say they suspect the use of pesticides in the battlefield,

burning oil tanks, bombs made from depleted uranium and new vaccines for

causing health problems that range from exhaustion to loss of motor function.

 

 

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centredaily/news/4896197.htm

Posted on Wed, Jan. 08, 2003

 

British Terror Police Hunt for Deadly Poison

BY MICHAEL HOLDEN

Reuters

 

LONDON - British police were searching for a deadly stockpile of ricin

Wednesday after discovery of traces of the poison in London heightened fears

around Europe of a chemical terror campaign.

 

Anti-terrorist police said they were questioning six north African men after

seizing the poison -- which some experts have linked to al Qaeda -- in raids on

a rundown north London suburb.

 

One security source told Reuters the men were Algerians whose likely intention

was to infect people using a poisoned cream: a scenario that would unleash

widespread fear rather than mass deaths.

 

Medical officials sought to quash fears that terrorists had built a

sophisticated laboratory to produce a poison so deadly that less than a

milligram can kill if ingested, inhaled or injected.

 

In the dingy Wood Green suburb where police found the deadly stash, locals in

the large immigrant community voiced fears that Britain's campaign against

states such as Iraq might come back to haunt ordinary people at home.

 

" If we start bombing them, they will come here and do the same thing to us, "

said one local resident who declined to give his name.

 

Police fear the traces of ricin and equipment they found in a Victorian

terraced flat above an innocuous pharmacy could be just the tip of the iceberg.

 

Security sources said they feared large amounts of the poison could still be in

the hands of extremists in Britain or abroad, while doctors around the country

were on alert for the flu-like symptoms linked to ricin.

 

As police only found a small amount of the poison, officers were on an urgent

hunt for any other secret stockpiles that might be used to sow terror.

 

" There is serious concern it may have been moved somewhere that we don't know

about by other people who are at large and determined to carry out an attack, "

one anti-terrorist police source told the Daily Mirror newspaper.

 

Britain -- considered to be a particular target for attacks because of its

strong support for the U.S.-led " war on terror " -- has repeatedly warned that

its population could be targeted.

 

JITTERS ROUND EUROPE

 

Although fears of a potential chemical attack have swirled around Europe for

months, this is the first hard evidence made public of the manufacture of a

substance which could be used.

 

London police arrested three men in November amid reports of a planned cyanide

gas attack on the capital's Underground rail system but the government denied

an attack was planned.

 

The arrests of three Algerians and a Moroccan in Paris in December also

initially sparked fears that a chemical attack was being planning after police

said they found two phials of chemicals and a personal protection suit.

 

But France later said it believed the four suspected Islamist militants were

planning a bomb attack.

 

Ricin has been linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda movement, blamed for the

September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, after instructions for making

it were allegedly found in a house used by the group in Afghanistan in 2001.

 

But British police did not immediately link the London find to al Qaeda.

 

The poison, developed during World War II by the United States and its allies,

has a long history of use in international espionage, but experts say it is

hard to use as an agent of mass death.

 

Its best known victim was Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, assassinated by a

jab to the leg with a poison-tipped umbrella in London in 1978.

 

Experts said an attack, even if unsuccessful, would generate a climate of fear.

 

" My best guess is they were planning something like the anthrax incidents that

there have been in the United States, " Michael Yardley, a historian of

terrorism, told Reuters