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Stars and Stripes: General’s Anthrax
Vaccine Testimony ‘Inconsistent With Honesty,’ Says
Inspector
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Guard pilots break formation over testimony.
General’s Anthrax Vaccine Testimony ‘Inconsistent With
Honesty,’ Says Inspector
May 11, 2001
Dave Eberhart
Stars and Stripes News Editor
Weaver
“We’ve had 10,700 people inoculated for anthrax in the
Air National Guard, with one known refusal documented,” said
Maj. Gen. Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard (ANG)
during a September 1999 hearing before a Congressional panel.
A group of military officers later charged that Weaver misled the committee and a recent investigation agreed with them—in part.
· DOD IG
“His [Weaver’s] statement lacked the necessary element
of ‘straightforwardness,’ and so was inconsistent with
guidelines for honesty as set forth by the Joint Ethics Regulations
(JER),” said the Department of Defense (DOD) Office of the
Inspector General (IG) in a report concluded in March.
Robert J. Lieberman, the deputy DOD IG, further concluded Weaver presented the truth “in such a way as to lead recipients to confusion, misinterpretation, or inaccurate conclusions.” Weaver’s nomination for appointment to the grade of lieutenant general was being held by the secretary of the Air Force pending completion of the inquiry, according to Lieberman.
The report concluded, however, that Weaver’s misleading testimony before a House committee investigating refusals of the anthrax vaccine did not warrant any punishment. Weaver was “not willfully false or misleading” in view of the staff analysis and input on which he based comment of “one known refusal documented,” said the IG report. Lieberman concluded that “several staffs” had combined efforts to define what constituted a “refusal” for statistical purposes in an attempt to measure the impact of the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP) on retention of military personnel.
· DOD IG
“We found that the meaning of the term ‘refusal’
was key to understanding the intent and basis of Maj. Gen. Weaver’s
statement” before Congress, said the report. “In his
testimony to us, Maj. Gen. Weaver emphasized that, because ‘there
was so much misinformation out there [concerning the number of
pilot losses due to refusals of the anthrax vaccine],’ he
considered it essential that any statistics provided to the subcommittee
be accurate and verifiable.”
On Jan. 14, 2000, 74 officers ranging in rank from first lieutenant
to full colonel, composed mostly of the ANG or United States Air
Force Reserve (USAFR) pilots, presented Donald Mancuso, then the
acting DOD IG, a complaint and request for investigation. The
officers were concerned that Weaver’s comments were an attempt
to bury legitimate concerns about the side effects of the current
anthrax vaccine used by the Pentagon.
More than 500,000 troops have received the six-shot series since
the program was implemented in 1998 and an estimated 450 military
personnel have refused to take the vaccine. The Stars and Stripes
obtained a copy of the complaint of the 74 officers as well as
a copy of the results of the IG investigation.
In testimony before the IG, Weaver acknowledged that he should have explained further his comment regarding “one known refusal documented,” to include the definition that it referred to “someone who’s got a commitment, who refuses the immunization.” Further, he told the IG that he wished he had balanced the “one known refusal documented” comment with the admission that he was aware of other ANG members who might have left because they refused to take the anthrax vaccine.
Committee Head Dan Burton
The officers’ complaint noted that during the Sept. 29, 1999
hearing before the House Government Reform Committee’s Subcommittee
on National Security, Veterans’ Affairs and International
Relations, Weaver said, “So, when I hear all of these other
figures about these mass resignations [due to members refusing
the anthrax vaccine], and what not, they’re just not there.
There are challenges with explaining, with discussing, as they
all are, with the members of their unit, on the anthrax issue.
But when it really gets down to it, we’ve had 10,700 people
inoculated for anthrax in the Air National Guard, with one known
refusal”
Eight Pilots, Seven Pilots
Months prior to Weaver’s testimony, however, the complaint
alleged, eight pilots from the Connecticut Air National Guard
and seven from the Wisconsin Air National Guard refused the anthrax
vaccine. “Maj. Gen. Weaver first became aware of the imminent
departure of these pilots from warnings forwarded to the Air National
Guard headquarters by the commander of the Connecticut ANG 103rd
Fighter Wing in October 1998--nearly one year prior to his testimony,”
the complaint said.
Weaver had received that memo from Col. Walter F. Burns, who voiced
concerns he could lose one-third of the pilots in his 103rd Fighter
Wing due to refusals to take the anthrax vaccine. Soon after that,
approximately one-fourth of the fighter wing’s pilots resigned
due to concerns about the vaccine.
Subsequently, said the complaint, on Jan. 21, 1999, former
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon acknowledged the departures from
the Connecticut ANG by stating: “eight or nine people have
resigned rather than take the shot.” These resignations,
said the complaint, were also covered in media reports beginning
on Jan. 15, 1999. The Wisconsin ANG pilot losses were also widely
publicized, added the complaint.
Ethics Regulations
The IG report based its conclusions upon an interpretation of
the Joint Ethics Regulation (JER), DOD Regulation 5500.7-R, which
states that DOD employees should consider ethical values when
making decisions as part of official duties. In that regard, the
JER states that being “truthful, straightforward, and candid”
are aspects of the primary ethical value of “honesty.”
Weaver also told the IG in sworn testimony that, in discussions with Charles L. Cragin, former assistant secretary of defense for reserve affairs, and staff members prior to the September 1999 hearing, he pondered, “Well, what do we consider refusal?” In response, he recalled that, during one of those meetings, he was told, “a refusal in the Guard and Reserve—since it’s a volunteer organization—is someone who’s got a commitment who refuses the immunization. That’s a refusal.”
Weaver told the IG that he had “no idea” where that definition originated, but that he agreed with it because such a refusal would be documented because of probable disciplinary action and would thereby enable a more accurate statistic regarding the number of Service members who refused the vaccine.
Lieberman found that the determination of what constituted a “refusal” was not only of concern to Weaver, but also had been the subject of debate and analysis by Air Force and National Guard bureau staffs for months before Weaver testified to the subcommittee. For example, said the IG, in an April 1999 presentation to the secretary of the Air Force, the lack of a clear refusal definition was raised. A slide from that presentation acknowledged that refusals were not being tracked and posed the issue: “How will we decide what equals refusal: initial reluctance? Administrative action? Non-judicial action? Separation?”
· air surgeon
Similarly, said the IG, an email sent by the National Guard Bureau
(NGB) air surgeon to members of the NGB staff opined: “There
appears to be little consistency to what is considered a bona
fide refusal. Even if we had a good definition of what a refusal
is, we still wouldn’t capture all the motivations, intents,
and thoughts that people have relative to anthrax in the course
of making career decisions; there’s no mechanism to track
this stuff and the exit interviews generally aren’t helpful.”
E-mail Evidence
According to the IG, the email suggested that the ANG would define
a refusal as the failure to follow a lawful order to take the
vaccine, then “Weaver adopted that relatively narrow definition
of refusal prior to his hearing before the subcommittee.”
Weaver noted most members of the National Guard can leave “if they don’t like what they see here,” indicating that they could resign on short notice if they anticipated being scheduled for a mandatory anthrax vaccination. Consistent with his definition of refusal, Weaver said that he not view pilots in the Connecticut National Guard who resigned as “refusals”—since they could avoid taking the vaccination without facing disciplinary action.
Weaver told the IG that, prior to the September hearing, a key staff member told him, “We have one person that is a confirmed refusal,” based on the narrow definition. Although the staff member did not recall making that representation to Weaver before the hearing, the IG found an e-mail that she transmitted to Weaver on July 13, 1999, which provided status on the progress of AVIP and stated: “Number of refusals—one confirmed with disposition pending.”
The IG said the testimony and communication that they received from Air National Guard members during the course of the inquiry demonstrated that those members considered the term “refusal” in standard dictionary parlance—“a declination—with none of the qualifiers that Maj. Gen. Weaver and his staff attached to it.”
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