Death of soldier from Missouri will be investigated amid spike in pneumonia cases/Military Vaccine Education Center/It's another cover-up/TWO young soldiers have killed themselves after falling ill with suspected Gulf War Syndrome

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News Archives
Military Vaccine Education Center.

[NEWS] Death of soldier from Missouri will be investigated amid spike in pneumonia cases
Associated Press - Friday August 01, 2003

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - Epidemiologists are investigating two unusual deaths from illness among troops in the Middle East to see whether they are related to 10 cases of severe pneumonia, The Springfield News Leader reported.

A Missourian, Spc. Joshua Neusche, 20, of Montreal, Mo., died of an illness July 12. His parents said the disease caused various organs to break down.

..."The doctor said (Josh) got into some type of toxin that began degenerating his muscles," Mark Neusche said Friday.

...The investigation comes at a time of overall concern about pneumonia. DeFraites said there has been a noticeable increase in pneumonia cases among soldiers since the war in Iraq began.

[NEWS] Deceit, danger mark U.S. pursuit of new WMD

by Heather Wokusch - Baltimore Sun - Wednesday July 30, 2003

VIENNA, Austria - Illegal biological and nuclear weapons production is on the rise - in the United States. Ignoring the internationally recognized Biological Weapons Convention, the U.S. Army has patented a grenade capable of delivering biological and chemical agents.

[NEWS] Plan for 'terror market' canceled

by - Associated Press via CNN - Tuesday July 29, 2003

"WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon will abandon a plan to establish a futures market to help predict terrorist strikes, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Tuesday." "...The little-publicized Pentagon plan envisioned a potential futures trading market in which speculators would wager on the Internet on the likelihood of a future terrorist attack or assassination attempt on a particular leader. A Web site promoting the plan already is available."

[NEWS] FDA Rewrites rulse on Biologics

by Susan Warner - The Independent/Great Britain - Sunday July 27, 2003

In a move designed to speed approval of new biotech products, the US Food & Drug Administration has transferred oversight for many new biotech therapies from its office that reviews biologics to the one that approves traditional drugs. Biotech and pharmaceutical companies had been pushing for the change for years, because it's generally believed that companies can more easily get regulatory clearance from the drug review section of the agency.

[NEWS] U.S. Army awards veterinary college researcher $1 million grant to develop vaccine

by Jeffrey S. Douglas - Press release - Thursday July 24, 2003

Blacksburg, Va. -- A bacteriologist in the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine has been awarded a $1.06 million grant from the U.S. Army to develop a vaccine for tularemia. ...The etiologic agent of tularemia is Francisella tularensis, which the Centers For Disease Control (CDC) classifies as a Category A bioterrorism agent.

[NEWS] Mysterious Illness Kills Missouri Soldier

by Eric Eckert - Missouri News-Leader - Wednesday July 23, 2003

Story ran July 16, 2003: ...Cindy Neusche said her son collapsed July 2 while in Baghdad and was transported to Germany. Doctors there told the family they believed Josh suffered from pneumonia due to fluid that had collected on his lungs. But then his liver, kidneys and muscles started to break down, his mother said.

..."I know the doctor over in Germany said he got into some type of toxin," Mark Neusche said. "Several soldiers were in similar conditions while we were there."

[NEWS] Pentagon plans draft of medics

by Mark Libbon - Charlotte News Observer/Newshouse News Service - Wednesday July 23, 2003

Article actually dates from March 21, 2003; WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is firming up a plan to draft thousands of doctors, nurses and other health-care specialists in the event of a worst-case crisis. The Selective Service System is dusting off its plan for a "health care personnel delivery system," which has been on the shelf since Congress authorized it in 1987 to cope with military casualties from a large-scale biological or chemical attack.

[NEWS] The Pentagon's best kept open secret; low-profile firm heads government science efforts

CNN.com/technology - Monday July 21, 2003

..."Other technology designed by SAIC tells soldiers where they are on the battlefield in relation to ground and air forces. Its 1,500 researchers at the National Cancer Institute in Frederick, Maryland, are trying to cure diseases and develop vaccines against bioterror."

[NEWS] UPI Investigates: The vaccine conflict

by Mark Benjamin - UPI - Sunday July 20, 2003

..."-- Members of the CDC's Vaccine Advisory Committee get money from vaccine manufacturers. Relationships have included: sharing a vaccine patent; owning stock in a vaccine company; payments for research; getting money to monitor manufacturer vaccine tests; and funding academic departments. -- The CDC is in the vaccine business. Under a 1980 law, the CDC currently has 28 licensing agreements with companies and one university for vaccines or vaccine-related products. It has eight ongoing projects to collaborate on new vaccines."

[NEWS] House OKs bill on bioterrorism

New York Times - Thursday July 17, 2003

Washington -- The House voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to establish a $5.6 billion fund designed to encourage the development of drugs, vaccines and other defenses against biological, nuclear, radiological or chemical attack.

[NEWS] Grassroots Uprising Fights to Protect Rights and Freedoms

by Betsy Barnum - Common Dreams News Center - Wednesday July 16, 2003

In October 2001, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act setting aside many of our individual freedoms for the sake of fighting terrorism. Since then, I've worried about what's happening to democracy. Do we understand the threat USA PATRIOT poses to our civil liberties? Or are we willing to give up our rights and freedoms in return for a promise of safety, and shrug off the danger to democracy from an unaccountable government? I'm not worried anymore.

[NEWS] Cheney under pressure to quit over false war evidence

by Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Marie Woolf - The Independent/Great Britain - Wednesday July 16, 2003

Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President and the administration's most outspoken hawk over Iraq, faced demands for his resignation last night as he was accused of using false evidence to build the case for war. He was accused of using his office to insist that a false claim about Iraq's efforts to buy uranium from Africa to restart its nuclear programme be included in George Bush's State of the Union address - overriding the concerns of the CIA director, George Tenet.

[NEWS] In '93, Biological Defense Program Was Misguided, Poorly Managed

by Seth Shulman - Special Report to the Center for Public Integrity - Tuesday July 15, 2003

Note: This is a 2001 report, just posted here in 2003. Exerpt: "...Our report reveals a government program that is largely insulated and unaccountable."

[NEWS] Death of Soldier Who Received Multiple Vaccines Investigated

by Deborah Funk - Army Times - Monday July 14, 2003

Federal and Minnesota state health officials are investigating the death of a 22-year-old Army specialist who died weeks after receiving multiple vaccines, including anthrax and smallpox vaccinations. Rachael Lacy of Lynwood, Ill., a nursing student and combat medic with the 452nd Combat Support Hospital at Fort McCoy in Milwaukee, got five different vaccinations March 2 as her unit prepared to deploy to the Persian Gulf. Ten days later, she went to the post clinic with shoulder pain and vomiting and was treated for what health workers thought was a bronchial infection. Over the next three weeks, she was treated at three different civilian facilities, one of which diagnosed her with pneumonia, said Fort McCoy spokeswoman Linda Fournier. Lacy died at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., on April 4 of lung damage. Dr. Eric Pfeifer, the Minnesota coroner who performed the autopsy, said the smallpox and anthrax vaccines "may have" contributed to Lacy's death. "It's just very suspicious in my mind ... that she's healthy, gets the vaccinations and then dies a couple weeks later," Pfeifer said in an interview.

[NEWS] Drug giant accused of false claims - vets on Neurontin should read this

MSNBC News - Sunday July 13, 2003

" Franklin says the rules went out the window from the moment he arrived on the job. For instance, he was told not simply to wait for doctors to ask him for his scientific opinions, but to instead target doctors and convince them to prescribe Neurontin, even though he knew that there was no FDA approval for its off-label uses."

[NEWS] Malaria drug warning follows problems

by Mark Benjamin and Dan Olmsted - UPI - Thursday July 10, 2003

WASHINGTON, Jul 10, 2003 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- The Food and Drug Administration has taken the rare step of ordering that patients are warned directly of serious mental problems and reports of suicide linked to a common anti-malaria drug called Lariam. The move -- which the FDA has ordered only 17 times previously -- follows a decade of increasingly dire warnings about the drug, and a trail of horror stories from people who said they have suffered from side effects from the drug. Lariam hit the news last summer after three Fort Bragg, N.C., soldiers accused of killing their wives after returning from Afghanistan appeared to have taken the drug. Two of the three shot themselves after killing their wives; the third hanged himself in his jail cell in March. A U.S. Army report said the drug was an "unlikely" factor for the cluster of deaths but did not rule it out in any one case.

[NEWS] GOP blocking abolishment of Disabled Veterans Tax

by Joseph L. Galloway - Knight Ridder Newspapers - Wednesday July 09, 2003

WASHINGTON - Its formal title is The Retired Pay Restoration Act of 2003. Veterans say it is a long overdue measure to end what they have nicknamed The Disabled Veterans Tax. By either name it is a hot-button issue for 670,000 disabled American military veterans. What the bill would do is redress a century-old injustice - a law that says anyone who retires after a full career of military service and draws retirement pay will have that pay reduced, dollar for dollar, for any payment received from the Veterans Administration for permanent service-connected disability.

[NEWS] Former U.S. Army Surgeon General Ronald Blanck Joins Carrington Laboratories Board of Directors

PR Newswire/Yahoo - Monday July 07, 2003

y IRVING, Texas, July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Carrington Laboratories, Inc. (Nasdaq: CARN - News) today announced that Dr. Ronald Ray Blanck, a retired lieutenant general and former Surgeon General of the U.S. Army and commanding general of the Army Medical Command, has been elected to the company's board of directors. Dr. Blanck, 61, who is currently president of the UNT Health Science Center (UNTHSC) in Fort Worth, joins the existing six-member board. He assumed his current position at the UNTHSC shortly after retiring from the Army in July 2000.

[NEWS] Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals Added to Russell 3000 and 2000 Indexes

Business Wire - Tuesday July 01, 2003

"... The Company has a number of investigational IRHs under development, including HE2100, which the Company is co-developing with the U.S. military for use in protection from radiation injury and HE2000, which are currently being studied in a number of infectious diseases. "

[NEWS] Race Is On to Save the First Aids Vaccine - But Does it Even Work?

by Sarah Boseley, Health Editor - Guardian Unlimited (UK) - Tuesday July 01, 2003

What was billed as the first Aids vaccine, with potential to end a global disaster that is killing millions every year, has ended with an ignominious whimper, as a Californian biotech company arranges to pull out of Thailand before the final analysis of its clinical trials involving 2,500 Thai volunteers.

[NEWS] Terrorists' Most Likely Weapon Here? Bombs.

by Laura Parker - USA Today - Friday May 16, 2003

The large-scale emergency drills this week in Seattle and Chicago were designed to teach cities how to respond to two of the most horrifying terrorism scenarios: the explosion of a radioactive ''dirty bomb'' and the release of a deadly biological agent. But the drills, many law enforcement and terrorism analysts say, don't reflect the true nature of the terrorist threat to America -- and could leave people with an exaggerated view of the likelihood of such attacks and the damage they would cause.

[NEWS] Fighting Words

The American Prospect - Wednesday April 30, 2003

One of the big disgraces of this administration is the way it has quietly sought to cut back health benefits for veterans even as it publicly sings the praises of our soldiers when they're in combat.

[NEWS] DoD Works to Educate Health Care Workers on Vaccines

by Army Sg.t 1st Class Kathleen T. Rhem - American Forces Press Service - Sunday April 06, 2003

sent to the Anthrax-No Chat Group April 6, 2003 - Excerpt: She said service members 20 years ago received "a handful" of vaccines, but now routinely take more than 50 shots during their careers. And another 30 vaccines are at various stages of the developmental pipeline and may be introduced into the immunization requirements over the next five years.

[NEWS] U.S. sent Iraq germs in mid-'80s

by DOUGLAS TURNER, News Washington Bureau Chief - Buffalo News (NY) - Tuesday September 24, 2002

WASHINGTON - American research companies, with the approval of two previous presidential administrations, provided Iraq biological cultures that could be used for biological weapons, according to testimony to a U.S. Senate committee eight years ago. West Nile Virus, E. coli, anthrax and botulism were among the potentially fatal biological cultures that a U.S. company sent under U.S. Commerce Department licenses after 1985, when Ronald Reagan was president, according to the Senate testimony.

Anthrax Vaccine



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[NEWS] Bush: Get Anthrax Vaccine

by Laurie Garrett, Staff Writer - Newsday - Monday July 28, 2003

More than 500 scientists working on AIDS and other infectious diseases learned recently that their federal grants are being reduced so that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases can meet a White House mandate to come up with a new anthrax vaccine.

[NEWS] Anthrax Treatment May Not Be Sufficient

National Academy of Science/Yahoo - Monday July 28, 2003

WASHINGTON - People exposed to high levels of anthrax may need more than the 60 days of antibiotics currently recommended, researchers say. A team at Johns Hopkins University developed a mathematical analysis of the time needed for anthrax spores to germinate in the lungs and the speed at which they are eliminated by antibiotics

y [NEWS] No Vaccine, No Glory, Navy Says

by Mark Arax, Times Staff Writer - Los Angeles Times - Monday July 21, 2003

...""The military well knows how many deaths and illnesses this experimental vaccine has caused, and yet they continue to insist otherwise," said John Richardson, a former F-16 pilot and policy analyst for the Joint Chiefs of Staff who stands at the forefront of the opposition. "They can't find weapons of mass destruction, and yet they are throwing people in jail who refuse to take a vaccine that they claim protects against weapons of mass destruction," he said."

[NEWS] Another Shot in the Arm

by Lawrence Carrel - Business-Smart Money.com/Yahoo - Tuesday July 15, 2003

Vical stock soars with announcement of new vaccine research for West Nile virus; vical already has seen a stock jump from its work on the anthrax vaccine, to wit: "...Back in March, the stock soared 26% to $2.81 in a single session after Vical unveiled plans to begin testing its anthrax vaccine on humans. But that was only the beginning. During the four months since that announcement, Vical's shares have climbed an impressive 139%, far outpacing the 56% rally in the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index and the 24% rise in the broader S&P 500 index."

[NEWS] Marine Pilot Jailed for Refusing Vaccine

Associated Press - Friday July 11, 2003

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. (AP) -- A Marine helicopter pilot who refused on religious grounds to receive an anthrax vaccination was dismissed from the Corps on Tuesday and ordered to serve seven months in prison. 1st Lt. Erick Enz pleaded guilty during a court-martial to disobeying the order of a superior. He faced a maximum punishment of five years confinement, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and dismissal from service.

[NEWS] Claims US diverting AIDS funding into anthrax vaccine

ABC News Online - Friday July 11, 2003

It has emerged that United States Government funds for research on AIDS and other infectious diseases are being diverted into buying the anthrax vaccine. The BBC reports in the 2003 budget, President George W Bush asked Congress to provide funds for purchasing and evaluating a new anthrax vaccine. Congress declined but the White House has now instructed one of the Government's medical research facilities, the national institute of allergy and infectious diseases, to find the funds by cutting back on other projects.

[NEWS] Marine booted for refusing vaccine

by Eric Steinkopff - Jacksonville (NC, USA) Daily News - Wednesday July 09, 2003

DAILY NEWS STAFF A Marine Desert Storm veteran who refused on religious grounds to receive an anthrax vaccination in December was dismissed from the Corps on Tuesday and ordered to serve seven months in prison. During a general court-martial at New River Air Station, CH-46 Sea Knight pilot 1st Lt. Erick Enz pleaded guilty to disobeying the order of a senior commissioned officer.

[NEWS] Anthrax Vaccine Moves into Clinical Trials

by Karen Fleming-Michael - Armed Forces Information Service - Wednesday July 09, 2003

FORT DETRICK, Md., July 9, 2003 - The next-generation anthrax vaccine, based on a decade of work at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, is now moving into not one, but four clinical trials. The group at the institute did the legwork for the current vaccine candidates by singling out which protein in Bacillus anthracis - the bacterium that causes anthrax - signals the body to produce immunity to the disease.

[NEWS] Vaccine deal turnaround

by John Dudley Miller - The Scientist - Friday July 04, 2003

A deal reportedly proposed last week to resolve an ongoing dispute between the Bush Administration and Congress over funding to procure anthrax vaccine appears to have fallen through. A letter sent Wednesday (July 2) from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to a Senate subcommittee outlines a plan that would take money earmarked for other research supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to pay for the anthrax vaccine.

[NEWS] ?Subject of Anthrax Inquiry Tied to Anti-Germ Training

by ?William J. Broad, David Johnston and Judit - New York Times - Wednesday July 02, 2003

?Three years ago, the United States began a secret project to train Special Operations units to detect and disarm mobile germ factories of the sort that Iraq and some other countries were suspected of building, according to administration officials and experts in germ weaponry.

[NEWS] Vical Receives Grant From NIH for Development of Anthrax Vaccine

PR Newswire - Monday June 30, 2003

SAN DIEGO, June 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Vical Incorporated (Nasdaq: VICL - News) today announced that it has been awarded a three-year, $5.7 million Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The grant will partially fund the development of Vical's non-viral DNA vaccine against anthrax, and does not change the company's net loss forecast for 2003. ..." we intend to begin human clinical testing in the second half of 2003."

[NEWS] Tests on Humans for Anthrax Drug to Begin

by Stephen Manning, AP Business Writer - Associated Press - Wednesday June 25, 2003

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - A biotechnology company said Wednesday it will soon start human tests of an anthrax drug that blocks the toxins released by the deadly bacteria.

[NEWS] Questions Mount Over Anthrax Shot

CBS Evening News - Friday June 20, 2003

A General Accounting Office investigation last fall found that the rate of side effects from anthrax vaccine was hundreds, sometimes thousands, of times higher than what the military claimed. (CBS) Kamila Iwanowska is the latest soldier to get kicked out of the U.S. military for refusing the anthrax vaccine, CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports. "It's not about defiance and it's not about being a bad soldier, because it's not," says Iwanowska, a former Army reservist, who received a bad conduct discharge. She says it's about her belief that the anthrax vaccine could be dangerous. Since it became mandatory five years ago, hundreds of troops have been disciplined or booted out for rejecting it, and dozens of others have been court-martialed. "If I knew then what I know now, I would have refused to take the vaccine," said Jason Nietupski, a former U.S. Army captain who got seriously ill after his shot in 2000. "I developed blood clots in my legs," Nietupski says. "They found pulmonary nodules in my lungs." But even when the Army finally documented that the vaccine was to blame, Nietupski says no one reported his case to the FDA, which tracks adverse events. "There's a lot of people like me out there because doctors in the military are fearful of reporting adverse events to the Food and Drug Administration because of potentially being reprimanded for doing so," he says. In fact, a General Accounting Office investigation last fall found that the rate of side effects from anthrax vaccine was hundreds, sometimes thousands of times higher than what the military claimed. The Defense Department says it now encourages more accurate reporting of adverse events. But the latest numbers the military provided CBS News still fall short: Among 600,000 people who got anthrax shots in the past year, possible side effects are reported by the military in only a fraction of one percent: .142 percent or 852 reports per 600,000 people. The GAO investigation released last fall found a much higher rate in a survey of vaccines: 85 percent, with side effects ranging from lumps and rashes to hospitalizations. Dr. Bill Winkenwerder, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, oversees military vaccines and says he urges all problems to be reported. He says it's "just not true" that the military hasn't provided the whole story as to how many people are getting sick from anthrax vaccines. "We've been very forthcoming," Winkenwerder says. "There'd be no reason to be anything else other than that. Our personnel are our most important assets." Jason Nieptuski just wonders how many others might end up like him. "I took the vaccine because I was patriotic, because I love my country and because I wanted to serve in the military. Even though the Army ruled that the medical complications were from anthrax vaccine, I can no longer serve because of the blood clots," Nieptuski says. Late last year, government investigators advised the Defense Department to actively track each soldier who gets the anthrax vaccine to get a truer picture of the harm it may do, but the military rejected that advice. Now, some troops find themselves more worried about the shots than the biological threat they're supposed to ward off.

[NEWS] Pilot Wants To Challenge Vaccine - Say Military Transferred Him to Avoid Issue

by Thomas D. Williams - Hartford Courant - Connecticut - Wednesday June 18, 2003

A U.S. Air Force pilot is attempting to force the military to begin a court martial against him in an effort to highlight the plight of other soldiers who have been disciplined for refusing to take a controversial anthrax vaccine.

[NEWS] Coroner rules vaccinations contributed to reservist's death

by BY LAURI HARVEY, Times Staff Writer - The Times Online (NY TImes) - Thursday June 12, 2003

LYNWOOD -- A Minnesota coroner has determined that smallpox and anthrax vaccines contributed to the death of a Lynwood reservist this spring. U.S. Army Reserves Spc. Rachael Lacy, 22, died April 4 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., just over a month after receiving the vaccinations. Doctors discovered, after she became ill, that she had lupus, an autoimmune disorder that inhibits the body's ability to fight disease.

[NEWS] Md. Pond Drained for Clues in Anthrax Probe

by By David Snyder and Marilyn W. Thompson - Washington Post - Tuesday June 10, 2003

The FBI began draining a spring-fed pond in rural Maryland yesterday, searching for additional clues to the attacker who killed five people with envelopes containing lethal anthrax bacteria in the fall of 2001. Investigators this winter found a device that some authorities believe may have been used to prepare the letters. Now they are seeking equipment and clothing that might have been used to work with the anthrax bacteria, which was so highly aerosolized that it could have sickened or killed anyone who came in contact with it. They also plan to sift through sediment at the bottom of the pond to test for any trace of the lethal pathogen.

[NEWS] AVANT Achieves Milestones in Development of Injectable Anthrax and Oral Anthrax/Plague Vaccines for U.S. Department of Defense

by - BUSINESS WIRE - Thursday June 05, 2003

NEEDHAM, Mass. - AVANT Immunotherapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: AVAN - News) today announced it has been awarded two additional subcontracts marking further milestones in the company's efforts with DynPort Vaccine Company LLC ("DVC") to develop anthrax and plague vaccines for the U.S. Department of Defense. ...DVC is the prime systems contractor for the Defense Department's Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program (JVAP).

[NEWS] BioPort purchases assets of Antex Biologics, Inc.

by Kim Brennen Root, 517/327-1543 - Business Wire/Yahoo - Tuesday June 03, 2003

BioPort Corporation of Lansing, Michigan today announced the purchase of the assets of Antex Biologics, Inc., of Gaithersburg, Maryland. "This acquisition fortifies BioPort's long-term strategic plan by providing an exciting new product pipeline," said Bob Kramer, president of BioPort. "Antex brings us both innovative products and talented, experienced scientific personnel."

[NEWS] AMERICAN MORNING - Interview with Maj. Thomas Rempfer

by HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: - CNN Online - Thursday May 29, 2003

Is the anthrax vaccine safe? Some members of the military say no, and they are refusing to take it.

[NEWS] VaxGen to Start Human Anthrax Vaccine Trials; VaxGen Company Profile

by - Reuters/Yahoo - expired - Tuesday May 27, 2003

VaxGen is developing its anthrax vaccine candidate under a contract from the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

[NEWS] FDA Clears VaxGen's IND for Anthrax Vaccine Candidate; Clinical Development to Begin at Leading Medical Centers

PR Newswire/Yahoo - Tuesday May 27, 2003

BRISBANE, Calif., May 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VaxGen, Inc. (Nasdaq: VXGN - News) announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the Investigational New Drug (IND) application for its candidate anthrax vaccine.

[NEWS] New Find Reignites Anthrax Probe

by Marilyn B. Thompson - Washington Post - Sunday May 11, 2003

The FBI has developed a new theory on a central mystery of the 2001 anthrax attacks after finding evidence in a Frederick, Md., pond that may suggest how an ingenious criminal could have packed deadly anthrax spores into envelopes without killing or sickening himself, according to sources close to the investigation.

[NEWS] Soldier Guilty for Refusing Anthrax Shot

by William Kates - Washington Post - Thursday May 08, 2003

FORT DRUM, N.Y. - A military panel on Wednesday found an Army reservist guilty of disobeying an order for refusing to take the anthrax vaccine. The panel of eight officers took only 40 minutes before returning a guilty verdict against Pvt. Kamila Iwanowska.

[NEWS] Scientists unlock deadly secrets of anthrax genes

MSNBC.com - Wednesday April 30, 2003

Only a few genes turn relatively harmless bacteria found in dirt into a virulent form of anthrax, researchers say. Their analysis of anthrax?s genetic code, published in Thursday?s issue of the journal Nature, has implications for making a better vaccine ? and for defending against new and dangerous bacteria made either by humans or nature.

[NEWS] Did the FBI Make Rush to Judgement?

by Timothy Maier - Insight Magazine - Tuesday April 15, 2003

Five people dead, dozens of others injured and at least one more postal employee failing fast. Yet the FBI is no closer to solving the anthrax-letter attacks than it was when it began investigating them in October 2001.

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[NEWS] Smallpox vaccine program faltering

Associated Press - Thursday July 24, 2003

WASHINGTON, July 24 ??? The number of health care workers vaccinated against smallpox varies widely across the country, a top federal health official said Thursday, offering the most detailed picture yet of the foundering vaccination program.

[NEWS] Weakened Smallpox Vaccine Is Safer, Research Shows

Reuters Health - Tuesday July 15, 2003

Two weakened versions of the smallpox vaccine seem to work safely and are just as effective as the existing vaccine, considered the most dangerous vaccine in current use, researchers said on Monday.

[NEWS] People Who Should NOT Get the Smallpox Vaccine

Centers for Disease Control - Monday July 07, 2003

Among other conditions, CDC recommends not getting this vaccine if you have a weakened immune system.

[NEWS] Smallpox shots: How safe are they?

Associated Press via CNN - Tuesday June 24, 2003

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Heart muscle inflammation should be added to the list of serious but uncommon side effects linked to smallpox shots, a U.S. military study found. The study details 18 cases of probable myopericarditis out of 230,734 military personnel vaccinated between December 2002 and mid-March. The rate is more than triple the expected rate in nonvaccinated people and translates to at least 78 cases per million people.

[NEWS] Smallpox Vaccine Campaign Slows to a Crawl

New York Times - Thursday June 19, 2003

U.S. military and civilian smallpox vaccination programs are at a virtual standstill, The New York Times reports. The civilian program has come to a near halt because few people have volunteered to receive the smallpox vaccination. The military program has vaccinated nearly everyone it can. So far, 493,000 people have been given the smallpox vaccine and the number of people who suffered dangerous side effects was lower than expected. Eight people had heart attacks after being immunized and three died. But officials say it's not clear whether the deaths were linked to the vaccine or were coincidental.

[NEWS] A Link Between the Smallpox Vaccine and Death From Heart Disease?

by Dr. Sherri Tennpenny - Mercola.com - Saturday May 31, 2003

A CDC press release tells us seven cases of "cardiac adverse events [three myocardial infarctions, two cases of angina, and two cases of myopericarditis] have been reported among civilian vaccinees since the beginning of the smallpox vaccination program." And another 10 cases of myopericarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle and outer lining of the heart) were reported among those in the military who received the vaccine.

[NEWS] More Smallpox Vaccine Concerns

by Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson - CBS News - Tuesday May 27, 2003

WASHINGTON, D.C., - "We think that it's better for public health, we think it's better for the campaign, that all information be learned about to the degree possible before launching into phase two in a large-scale way." -- Dr. Brian Strom (CBS) There is new concern about the government's already troubled smallpox vaccination program. Few of the half-million healthcare workers eligible for innoculation under phase one of the program chose to get vaccinated. And some health experts are warning -- not so fast.

[NEWS] DoD's Smallpox Immunization Program 'A Real Success'

by Gerry J. Gilmore - American Forces Press Service/DefenseLink - Wednesday May 07, 2003

WASHINGTON, May 6, 2003 ? DoD's smallpox immunization program for service members "has been a real success," DoD's senior medical official declared. The department has vaccinated more than 400,000 service members against smallpox since the program began on Dec. 13, 2002. Only 18 troops developed serious complications from the shot, and no deaths have resulted from vaccination, Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told Pentagon reporters here April 29.

[NEWS] New Fears About Smallpox Vaccine

y by CBS News Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson - CBS Evening News - Wednesday May 07, 2003

"This is a toxic vaccine. We should only use it in people who need it," says Strom. "And we need a few weeks or months to just step back and say let's replan the plans to see how many people need to get the vaccine before we continue on with it."

[NEWS] Report: Smallpox Program Too Slow to Evaluate

by Maggie Fox - Reuters Health - Thursday May 01, 2003

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. plans to vaccinate a front-line team of health workers in case of a smallpox attack are moving so slowly that the results cannot even be evaluated for safety, according to a government report issued on Wednesday. The report from the General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, echoes earlier findings from groups such as the independent Institute of Medicine (IOM).

[NEWS] Soldier Dies after Smallpox Vaccination

by Paul Meincke - ABC7 Chicago - Wednesday April 09, 2003

April 9, 2003 ? A funeral was held today for a 22-year-old Army Reservist from the south suburbs. She was not a casualty of war, but died several days after receiving the smallpox vaccine. Rachael Lacy was with an Army Reserve combat surgical unit. When it was activated in February, everyone in the unit as a standard procedure for their deployment was given a number of vaccinations. Not long after that, Rachel got sick. She never recovered.

[NEWS] Hospitals balk at smallpox vaccine

by Laura Parker - USA Today - Tuesday January 21, 2003

RICHMOND, Va. ? When doctors at the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals here announced in December that they would not participate in the Bush administration's program to vaccinate 11 million Americans against smallpox, they were harshly criticized for making a deplorable decision that could undermine the president's plan.

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[NEWS] Mysterious Diseases Haunt U.S. Troops In Iraq

IslamOnline.net - Friday July 18, 2003

BAGHDAD, July 17 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) ??? Several mysterious diseases were reported among a number of American troops within the vicinity of Baghdad airport, a military source closely close to NATO unveiled. U.S. soldiers deployed around Baghdad airport started showing symptoms of mysterious fever, itching, scars and dark brown spots on the skin, the source, who refused to be named, said in statements published Thursday, July 17, by the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper.

[NEWS] Sick Gulf War veterans show pattern of nerve problems

by Deborah Funk - Army Times/National Gulf War Resource Center - Tuesday July 08, 2003

The part of the central nervous system that controls such actions as heart rate, metabolism and pupil dilation does not work properly in some sick veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, researchers now have shown by objective physiological measurements

[NEWS] Gulf War Veterans with MS Start Their Own Group

by Ed Butler - National Gulf War Resource Center - Friday July 04, 2003

I wanted to update everyone as to where MSVETS stands at this point. We are now in the 10th month of this project. We have now identified 73 Gulf War Vets that have been diagnosed with MS and atleast 12 more that (in my opinion) present a clinical picture of MS, but have not been diagnosed with the disorder.

[NEWS] Birth Defects Tied to Gulf WarSyndrome

by Christopher J. Petherick - Exclusive to American Free Press - Sunday June 29, 2003

American veterans of the 1991 war in Iraq, who reported suffering a wide array of debilitating illnesses now known as Gulf War Syndrome (GWS), have had an alarming number of children born with severe birth defects, according to several independent researchers. The Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), however, have refused to acknowledge a direct relationship between those who served in or around Iraq during the war and the increase in birth defects among their offspring. ..."Sixty-seven percent of babies born to the 400,000 vets who suffer from Gulf War Syndrome have birth defects," said Joyce Riley, a former nurse who flew in Iraq and the founder and spokesperson of the American Gulf War Veterans Association. "But the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs do not want America to know the number of sick, dead and deformed kids that vets are having. It's another cover-up."

[NEWS] U.S. to Screen Troops Returning from Iraq - and commentary

by Ross Bynum - Associated Press - Monday June 02, 2003

Col. Paula K. Underwood, an Army doctor, had just returned to her post in Germany from the 1991 Gulf War (news - web sites) when she saw a patient whose condition baffled other doctors. The patient was a soldier, also just back from the war, who complained of memory loss. He could no longer find his way from home to work. He had trouble remembering how to make his morning coffee. He was the first of 72 patients with unexplained illnesses Underwood would see before leaving Germany in 1993. Some complained of aches and pains. Others said they got sick more often than normal.

[NEWS] Nerve Gas Exposure in Iraq in '91 Probed

by SUZANNE GAMBOA - Associated Press - Monday June 02, 2003

WASHINGTON - Since there is no way to determine how many U.S. soldiers were exposed to nerve gases in the first Gulf War (news - web sites), a congressional investigator said Monday, the Department of Veterans Affairs (news - web sites) should assume they all were. When U.S. troops destroyed caches of chemical-laden weapons in January, February and March 1991, the plume of deadly gas took an unknown path, said Keith Rhodes, the General Accounting Office (news - web sites)'s chief technologist.

[NEWS] Nerve Gas Exposure in Iraq in '91 Probed

y by Suzanne Gamboa - Associated Press - Friday May 30, 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government miscalculated the number of U.S. troops who may have been exposed to nerve gases when Iraqi weapons were destroyed during the first Gulf War, congressional investigators say.

[NEWS] Pentagon Backtracks ? Will Study Gulf War Syndrome

by James P. Tucker Jr. - Associated Free Press - Monday May 12, 2003

Following complaints by congressmen and the glare of publicity the Defense Department has changed course and will screen veterans of Gulf War II for a collection of physical ailments associated with the first invasion of Iraq.

[NEWS] Scientists Reject Pentagon Reassurances on Depleted Uranium

by Stephen Kent of Kent Communications, 845-758-0097 - U.S. Newswire - Thursday May 08, 2003

WASHINGTON, May 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A widely reprinted May 6 Associated Press wire story quoted US Army officers saying that armor-piercing depleted uranium shells used in Iraq pose no health threat, and that children playing with expended DU tank shells would have to eat and then "practically suffocate on DU residue" before health problems occurred. But a growing number of scientists and experts are repudiating such reassurances as false.

[NEWS] New Study Links Birth Defects to Service in the Gulf War

Wiley-Liss, Inc. - Monday April 14, 2003

According to a just published study from the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego and the Birth Defects and Pediatric Genetics Branch of the Centers for Disease Control, the children of male Gulf War veterans have a higher prevalence of certain heart and kidney defects than non-deployed veterans. The children of female veterans who served in the Gulf War have more infants with a genitourinary defect called hypospadias. The study led by Dr. Maria Rosario Araneta measured birth defect prevalence among infants of Gulf War veterans in several states and selected counties in Arkansas, California and Georgia, and all birth certificates from Arizona, Hawaii and Iowa.

Feres Doctrine



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[NEWS] US immune to legal action by veterans

by Nicholas Wapshott - London Time Online - Thursday May 08, 2003

New York - NO AMERICAN servicemen or veterans are suing the US Defense Department on similar grounds to the four British soldiers because under law it is forbidden to sue the Government or its contractors. "Under the Ferres Doctrine established by the Supreme Court in 1950 and the Federal Tort Claims Act, the sovereign duty of the Government means it cannot be sued," said Mike Maloney, a lawyer representing US servicemen who claim to have Gulf War syndrome. "Similarly, if a contractor is manufacturing to a government specification, as long as they confirm to the Government that their product may contain latent hazards, you cannot sue them either."

Lawsuits



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[NEWS] Lawsuit Filed Challenging Legality of DoD's Anthrax Vaccine

by John J. Michels, Esq; Mark S. Zaid, Esq. - McGuire Woods LLP - Tuesday March 18, 2003

On the apparent eve of war, six military servicemembers and Defense Department civilian contractors filed suit today in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and requested that a federal judge declare that the anthrax vaccine is an experimental drug and illegal. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT John J. Michels, Jr., Esq. Mark S. Zaid, Esq. (312) 849-8150 (202) 223-9050 (202) 498-0011 Cell

News from Great Britian and Australia



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[NEWS] (UK) Veterans Win Gulf War Ruling

by - BBC - Friday June 13, 2003

The High Court in London has upheld a ruling that a former soldier is entitled to a pension because he is suffering from a syndrome linked to his service in the 1991 Gulf War.

[NEWS] The Suicide Squaddies

by Mike Hamilton - The Sunday Mirror/Clear Day - Sunday June 08, 2003

TWO young soldiers have killed themselves after falling ill with suspected Gulf War Syndrome following the latest conflict in Iraq. Both men committed suicide after showing recognised symptoms of the illness - blamed on controversial jabs our troops were given before the war.

[NEWS] Porton nerve gas scientists escape criminal charges

by Sean Rayment, Defence Correspondent - The News Telegraph, London - Sunday June 08, 2003

Military scientists who secretly tested deadly nerve agents on unwitting British servicemen and women will not face any criminal charges, The Telegraph has learned. The Crown Prosecution Service says that there is insufficient evidence to prosecute scientists based at Porton Down, the Government's chemical warfare unit, where tests on thousands of service personnel were conducted between 1953 and 1983.

[NEWS] "War vaccines poisoned us"

by Rebecca Mowling - Evening Standard, London - Tuesday May 27, 2003

Four British soldiers who received jabs for the Iraq conflict are to sue the Ministry of Defence claiming they are suffering from a new form of Gulf War Syndrome.

yyy [NEWS] British War Vet Wins Gulf War Syndrome Claim

Europe Associated Press - Wednesday May 07, 2003

y Britain's Ministry of Defense said Monday it will compensate a British soldier who claimed he suffered from Gulf War syndrome, though the government still says there is no proof that the condition exists. Alex Izett, 33, won a judgment from the War Pensions Appeal Tribunal that he developed osteoporosis because of a combination of inoculations he was given. Izett did not serve in the 1991 Gulf War, but the injections were identical to those given to troops who have complained of problems following their wartime duty.

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