Soldiers Fear the Needle

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Wed, 23 Mar 2005 04:35:18 EST

Soldiers Fear the Needle

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Soldiers Fear the Needle

The Pentagon still fights for its anthrax vaccine

 

by Kareem Fahim

March 22nd, 2005 12:22 PM

 

 

Jesse Kearns says the anthrax vaccine caused his ongoing

health

woes, including heart attacks, blood clots, and a stroke.

 

Jesse Kearns blames the anthrax vaccines, pumped into his right

arm

over 14 months while he served in the navy, for leaving him saddled

with the

medical woes of a man three times his age.

Just 25, Kearns has suffered two heart attacks, including one he

didn't

notice, and a second that was nearly fatal; a stroke that left him

disabled,

with a slight limp; and blood clots, over the past few years, that have

swollen his arms and legs. His regular regimen of medicine, displayed

on a shelf in

his mother's Long Island kitchen, includes shots of a blood thinner

called

Lovenox, which he injects into his abdomen four times a day, leaving a

painful

trail of black and blue ringing his midriff.

 

Kearns said he thought nothing of taking the vaccines when

doctors

aboard his minesweeper in the Persian Gulf told the crew they were

required. " I

was 20 years old-I didn't know anything about it, " he said, and added

that

refusing the vaccine would have put him at quick odds with his

superiors and earned

him nothing but derision from fellow sailors.

 

Back in the U.S, concerns over the safety and effectiveness of

the

anthrax vaccine, which has been mandatory since March 1998 for service

members,

started to slowly churn in the military. Precise numbers aren't

available, but

hundreds of soldiers are thought to have left for fear of side effects

from the

vaccine. At least a hundred more were court-martialed for refusing. A

lore

grew up around the shots, and critics claimed the anthrax vaccine,

manufactured

by a Michigan company called BioPort, might be responsible for ailments

ranging from the still mysterious Gulf War Syndrome to death.

 

Today, those protests have grown strong enough to halt the DOD

program

that administers the anthrax vaccine. In October, a Washington, D.C.,

district

court judge, responding to a lawsuit brought by six John Doe soldiers,

issued

an injunction against the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP),

saying

the process that allowed the shots to be licensed in the first place

had been

flawed.

 

" Congress has prohibited the administration of investigational

drugs to

service members without their consent, " wrote Judge Emmet G. Sullivan.

" The

men and women of our armed forces deserve the assurance that the

vaccines our

government compels them to take into their bodies have been tested by

the

greatest scrutiny of all-public scrutiny. " The soldiers' lawyers

contended that,

among other things, since the Food and Drug Administration had not

allowed a suff

icient public comment period before licensing the vaccine as effective

against a certain type of anthrax exposure-so-called

" inhalationanthrax " -the

required shots were unlawful.

 

In December, the Pentagon struck back and obtained emergency

authorization to resume the program for military personnel on a

voluntary basis. That

move has also been controversial, and marks the first time a provision

from the

Project BioShield Act, a law passed three years after the 9-11 attacks

intended to help federal agencies respond to terrorist emergencies, has

been invoked.

 

The FDA has opened a public comment period on the vaccine, which

is set

to expire at the end of this month. Pentagon lawyers are then expected

to

argue that the injunction against the vaccine should be lifted, and

again make it

required of all soldiers.

 

A Pentagon spokesperson, responding to questions by e-mail,

elaborated

the reasons his agency thinks the vaccine should be mandatory. " The

Department

of Defense recognizes that military teams depend on each other to

survive on

the battlefield. That is why all vaccinations have traditionally been

mandatory. The mutual dependence of each team member means each needs

to be protected

against preventable infections. "

 

If the Defense Department prevails in court-and many observers

think

this is likely -it could mean a new round of defections, at a time when

the U.S.

military finds itself stretched between overseas engagements and is

missing

recruitment goals. Young people like Nick Lilienstern and Skip

Muller-sailors

who struggled to find honorable ways out of their service rather than

receive

the shots-could be the new victims of a vaccine that nobody seems to

know too

much about.

 

Muller and Lilienstern, who met when they served together briefly

on a

navy destroyer, found different ways to avoid taking the shots when

they

became required. Lilienstern refused outright, and immediately received

a

nonjudicial punishment. He was restricted to his ship for 45 days and

received half-pay

for two months. During that time, he said, the number of friends he had

on

his ship began to dwindle. When the captain threatened him with further

sanctions-the same punishment for each of the six anthrax shots

soldiers take in an

18-month series-his mother contacted their local congressman, and

Lilienstern

was discharged from the navy.

 

Skip Muller's superiors told him that refusing the vaccine would

mean a

court-martial, and possibly a dishonorable discharge. So he took some

advice

from a sympathetic senior officer and wrote a letter to the ship's

captain

explaining that he is gay. Within months, he received an honorable

discharge.

 

 

 

--------

 

The activists working against the anthrax vaccination program are

a

zealous bunch and include doctors, soldiers, lawyers, and former

journalists.

Their attack on the vaccine proceeds today more or less on two fronts.

They

argue, first, that there is not yet solid proof that the vaccine works

against

inhalation anthrax, the aerosol form of the agent that would likely be

used to

attack U.S. troops, and second, that side effects from the

vaccine-which might

include death-mean the shots should be voluntary and offered with a

brochure

that describes the risks. Or better, given that there has never been an

anthrax

attack directed against the U.S. military, that anthrax treatment shift

to

post-exposure antibiotics instead.

 

Mark Zaid, one of the lawyers who brought the latest suit against

DOD,

has been fighting the anthrax vaccine program since it was introduced

during

the Clinton administration. He said the first service members who dealt

with

the vaccine dilemma were sailors, like Lilienstern, Muller, and Jesse

Kearns-people who served on aircraft carriers and destroyers that were

in, or getting

ready to sail to, the Persian Gulf.

 

Zaid said the sailors, thousands of miles from home, were able to

connect with the growing network of activists starting to raise

concerns about the

program. " These kids had Internet access. So they'd e-mail their moms,

and

their moms would do the research, " he said. Many of these moms found

the work of

Meryl Nass, a doctor based in Maine who specializes in anthrax and

bio-terrorism.

 

" Most people don't get sick, " Nass told the Voice, " but a

significant

minority do. " Nass said soldiers started contacting her about the

vaccine in

1998, after many of them found a short article she had posted to an

Internet

mailing list. In the article, she noted there was still no answer to

the question

of what causes Gulf War Syndrome; and that the anthrax vaccine had not

been

subjected to a clinical trial.

 

The DOD maintains that the vaccine has an " extensive " safety

record,

noting that more than1.3 million people have received the vaccine, and

a million

of those people are still on active duty. " The rate of adverse events

is

similar to other vaccines, " wrote a Pentagon spokesperson in an e-mail,

adding

that the AVIP program is currently " paused. " In fact, the program is

not paused,

legally, but stopped.

 

" There still exists no reliable clinical data from which to glean

the

types of adverse reactions, their rates, or severity, " said Nass. While

there

have been extensive tests on animals, she noted that no one has been

able to

extrapolate that data to humans.

 

 

 

--------

 

By the time Jesse Kearns's aunt started to suspect the anthrax

vaccine

was what had made her nephew sick, and started combing the Web for

information

on it, his illness was well advanced. In 2001, his arm inexplicably

ballooned

after he lifted a new macerator motor on his ship. Navy doctors told

him he

had deep-vein thrombosis, and that it would " take care of itself, " he

recalled.

He returned to the U.S. on leave a few months later, and his arm

swelled

again. Doctors told him he had antiphospholipid syndrome, an autoimmune

disease

that causes blood clots, and prescribed Coumadin, an anticoagulant.

 

Within eight months, he developed another blood clot in his right

leg.

His navy service ended in January 2003, and he started a job in a

building-supply yard. He had trained on fire crews in the navy, but his

condition meant he

wouldn't be able to pass a fire department physical at home in New

York. This

is what Kearns regrets most about his illness, apart from the looming

threat

to his life: A troubled kid before joining the navy, Kearns had found

his

confidence working to put out fires on the ship, as well as a plan for

his future.

 

Kearns and his family are not sure the anthrax vaccine has

anything to

do with his ailments; as with many of those who receive the shots and

then

come down with unexplained illnesses, the rumors surrounding the

anthrax

shots-and the continuing sense of mystery-provides a possible answer.

Dr. Nass said

that studies linking vaccinations to Gulf War Syndrome call the anthrax

vaccine

a " separate risk factor. "

 

Whatever caused his illness, Kearns's struggle now is with the

military

bureaucracy. He has applied for disabled-veteran benefits, and today

only

receives $300 a month. He is in the midst of talks with the Department

of

Veterans Affairs to get more, so he can move out of his mother's house

and start his

life.

 

" The suffering of this patient and his struggles to gain support

for

his medical care highlight how difficult it can be for service members

to

navigate the health care and disability systems, " wrote Dr. Renata

Engler, director

of the Vaccine Healthcare Centers Network at Walter Reed Medical

Center, who

did an extensive write-up on the Kearns case. " The fact that he is

administratively struggling for recognition of the seriousness of his

illness and

approached [us] because he felt he had to prove that his illness was

service connected

saddens this military physician with almost thirty years service. "