Washington Times October 13, 1999 Pg. 18
Anthrax Shots Drive Air Force Veteran From The Service
I just read the Oct. 11 article "Anthrax shots spur revolt in ranks" on your Web site.
Well, that's it. I'm sad to say that after more than 16 years in the U.S. Air Force, on active duty and in the Reserve - the last 12 as a C-141B pilot - I'm packing it in. It has been rewarding, with many wonderful experiences, and I was getting close to retirement, but I wasn't ready to go. I participated in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and I once was fortunate enough to transport the current secretary of state, Madeleine K. Albright, through Russia and Eastern Europe for two weeks while she was ambassador to the United Nations. However, the Department of Defense's controversial anthrax vaccination program has convinced many other military reservists, National Guard members and me that it is time to go. I am more than willing to give my life in defense of my country, if necessary. What I am not willing to be, borrowing the description six members of Congress used in a stern letter to secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, is a member of a captive research market.
As members of the military, we are taught to be obedient and respectful for good reasons, but it is morally reprehensible for our military leadership to allow a program to continue with so much controversy and so many unanswered questions. Even if I quietly took this vaccine and did not become ill from it (a likely outcome), I would consider myself to be no better than the most outspoken of proponents. That is a compromise of integrity that I cannot make. My only choice is to leave the service and crusade against this abomination.
The Department of Defense (DOD) has no one to blame but itself for this controversy. We are told that this vaccine has no known long-term side effects, but then we find out that no long-term studies of the vaccine have been conducted. DOD says this vaccine is safe, effective and approved by the Federal Drug Administration but fails to mention that it is a 30-year-old vaccine intended primarily to protect at-risk wool handlers and veterinarians who treat large animals from cutaneous, or skin contact, anthrax, not inhalation anthrax, the most likely weaponized form. The agency also fails to point out that the manufacturing facility (owned by the BioPort Corp., in which Adm. William Crowe, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has a 22 percent ownership) went years without inspection, and when the anthrax production line was inspected, it failed miserably.
Additionally, DOD doesn't mention that the vaccine's safety and efficacy been judged as unknown by the General Accounting Office, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Senate staff report 103-97 and the 1994 testimony of the person currently in charge of administering the program, Army Lt. Gen. Ronald R. Blanck. DOD doesn't seem to care either that FDA approval means little, considering that the vaccine wasn't evaluated for its new anthrax strain, manufacturing process and booster ingredient in 1970, when FDA guidelines were less stringent. In April 1999 testimony, FDA officials even admitted they have never reviewed any other vaccine so poorly. But then the rotavirus vaccine, redux and phen-fen, now all taken off the market and in various stages of litigation, were all approved by the FDA, too, weren't they? Why is this vaccine, with many times the number of unexpected side effects and many more cases of systemic reactions than anticipated, still on the military market?
In spite of a mountain of cautionary evidence, the military only seems to have accelerated the pace at which it inoculates service members with possibly contaminated stockpiled vaccines. The Congressional Record contains gut-wrenching testimony by military members about the severe health problems they have suffered and the deplorable treatment they have received from the military health care system since receiving the anthrax vaccine. A high-ranking DOD official recently stated that not making troops take their anthrax vaccine was akin to not making them wear their helmets. What he didn't state was that helmets can come off when one's service ends. That vaccine (and any of its unknown long-term effects) is for life. Service members who search for the truth and raise objections are labeled Internet fanatics and malingerers. Is it any wonder many of us in a position to choose (reservists and Guard members) choose to leave?
Everyone who raises his right hand and takes an oath acknowledges that with military service comes the forgoing of certain civil rights. But I see the forced inoculation of 2.4 million service members with an inadequately studied, possibly adulterated and scientifically unproved vaccine as an issue of human rights. A colleague of mine appealing to his Congress member for help was met with the response, "Well, you volunteered." Are today's military members expected to forgo all rights as human beings to serve their country? The Air Force Reserve has stated that it is willing to take the hit and lose people like myself, but I'm really the one taking the hit. There will be no final flight, no retirement, no farewell. Some will say I am just falling on my sword. Maybe so, but it is far better than being so encumbered by it that I fail to live up to my oath of office and the principles upon which this nation was founded. Today's military leadership may not understand me, but I believe our Founding Fathers would.
When I drive out the gate of McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey one last time, I will be uninvolved with the military for the first time since 1983. It will be as though a large part of my identity suddenly has been ripped away. I am not so naive as to think that I cannot be replaced. I may not even be missed, but I will miss the military.
Mark A. Clark, Voorhees, N.J.
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Last revised: March 2000