Anthrax ruling a victory for local mom

[HARDCORE]

Sorry, the article's a little outdated now, but I don't believe it ever got posted.
Remember... it's the FDA now (the organization 'supposedly' in charge of 'protecting the health of the public') that has now cleared this for public use. Considering the DoD has indemnified Bioport from lawsuits stemming from injuries from soldiers, based on the "unusually hazardous adverse reactions", who will now indemnify Bioport/FDA from lawsuits from the public for "unusually hazardous adverse reactions"?


Snip: ?Walter Reed Hospital has an entire wing devoted to people who?ve gotten sick from military vaccines,? she goes on. ?The FDA is so bogus. I?d like those people to take a tour of that wing some time.?



http://www.montanaforum.com/rednews/...hp?nnn%20=%206

Anthrax ruling a victory for local mom
By VINCE DEVLIN
The Missoulian

MISSOULA ? It took three years, but there it was: Just before Christmas, a federal judge ruled that ?Absent an informed consent or presidential waiver, the United States cannot demand that members of the armed forces serve as guinea pigs for experimental drugs.?


Kathy Hubbell of Missoula knows the fight over the anthrax vaccine is far from over. Still, she says, ?We were absolutely thrilled that the judge had the courage and integrity to tell the truth about the vaccine.?


Hubbell had never heard of the controversy surrounding the vaccine when, back in 2000, she visited her son, John Hubbell, before the Air Force deployed him to the Middle East. In 1996 John had been in Saudi Arabia, and was en route to the Khobar Towers in Dhahram when terrorists exploded a massive truck bomb there that killed 19 American service members and injured hundreds of others.


?There was about a 5-minute window there, or we might have lost him,? Hubbell says. ?Ever since, I?ve organized family reunions or gone to visit him every time he was going to be deployed overseas.?


And in 2000, as he prepared for his third deployment to the Middle East, Kathy?s visit found her son and daughter-in-law ?up in arms? over the anthrax vaccine that was being forced on him by the Air Force.


?Really, I thought some right-wing wackos had gotten ahold of them and brainwashed them,? Hubbell says.


But their concern over the vaccine prompted Hubbell to start researching the subject.


?I went looking on the Internet for something that was not hysterical, not emotional; I wanted facts,? says Hubbell, who runs a public relations firm out of her Missoula home. ?I found that when I came across the site sponsored by Maj. Sonnie Bates.?


Bates, Hubbell says, is the highest-ranking officer to refuse the anthrax vaccine, costing him his military career.


?His letter to his commanding officer explaining why he would not take it had a military precision to it,? she says. ?It was just fact, fact, fact, fact. It convinced me there was a real problem here, and I had to get involved. The people this is affecting can have their pay docked, be demoted, be court-martialed. They can?t speak up, so I figured it?s up to the parents to do it.?


Hubbell helped start the Anthrax Vaccine Network, which has since spawned the Military Vaccine Education Center. They have discovered that the Department of Defense can be a formidable opponent.


What is it that has some service members upset about the vaccination?


Reactions that, in John Hubbell?s case, according to his mother, had him develop severe joint and bone pain, lesions, short-term memory loss and a heart murmur that had not existed before.


?And he?s one of the lucky ones,? Kathy says. The vaccine has been linked to six deaths, and to troops who have been permanently disabled by its side effects.


?The original label on the vaccine said side effects were reported by 0.2 percent of the people who took it,? Hubbell says. ?The new label says it?s 35 percent, and earlier this year the (General Accounting Office) said it?s up to 85 percent. But military doctors deny any connection to the vaccine, and if anyone insists that, yes, it?s due to the vaccine, they?re told they?re malingerers and sent to psychiatrists instead.?


The vaccine, licensed to protect against anthrax-to-skin contact, is also being used as protection against inhaled anthrax ? the most likely form of biological warfare a soldier might face ? even though the vaccine had not been approved for such use, Hubbell says.


?They?re using animal data to make that claim, even though we don?t know if the animal data can be transferred to human reaction,? Hubbell says.


U.S. intelligence agencies tell us anthrax is a top choice for use as a biological warfare agent according to the Department of Defense?s Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP). ?Anthrax spores are relatively easy to produce, remain dangerous for decades, and can be spread in the air easily,? AVIP says on its Web site, www.anthrax.osd.mil. ?Because of its deadliness, inhalational anthrax is the type of anthrax potential enemies have the capability to use against our troops.?


AVIP says the anthrax vaccine is as safe as any vaccine, adding, ?Many people get bothersome side effects where any vaccine is injected. People report headaches, muscle aches, and other temporary symptoms after any vaccine. Study after study shows: people vaccinated against anthrax are as healthy as unvaccinated people.?


?Your health and safety are our No. 1 concerns,? AVIP tells men and women in the service. ?We know anthrax vaccine works, because it protected mill workers in a study conducted by CDC scientists. Anthrax vaccine protected animals from inhalational anthrax in multiple studies. Anthrax vaccine works basically the same way other vaccines do. Like other vaccines, anthrax vaccine is not perfect.?


Shortly after Judge Emmet G. Sullivan issued his ruling barring the military from administering mandatory anthrax vaccine inoculations, the Food and Drug Administration declared the anthrax vaccine ?safe and effective.?


The FDA said its ?final rule and order? is that the vaccine is ?safe and effective for the prevention of anthrax disease ? regardless of the route of exposure.?


The FDA also cited an independent review of the vaccine by the Institute of Medicine, which concluded that it was safe.


Responded the Military Vaccine Education Center: ?Here we go. If anyone ever needed evidence that the FDA is tucked securely and safely into the back pocket of the Department of Defense, here it is. A few points to remember:


?1) The Pentagon funded the Institute of Medicine study, and there isn?t a single dissenting opinion in it, even the Army?s own publicly stated opinion that the anthrax vaccine is highly reactive. Furthermore, the study conveniently ignores independent studies as well as the label on the vaccine itself.


?2) The FDA/DoD consortium here is trying to use animal data to back up this current claim that the vaccine is safe and effective. This move is a direct outcome of the fact that the Bush administration, in conjunction with the FDA, has moved to declare animal data acceptable in vaccine research without human data trials. Feel safer now?


?3) Snip from the article: Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the lawsuit issued a statement saying that the FDA?s ruling is nothing more than ?after-the-fact gamesmanship to overrule the Court?s findings.??


Says Hubbell, ?I thought we signed something called the Nuremberg Code after World War II that said we would never conduct experimentation on human beings. Congress blasted the military in 1996 for continuously experimenting on our own troops since World War II, and they listed the anthrax vaccine as one of them.


?Walter Reed Hospital has an entire wing devoted to people who?ve gotten sick from military vaccines,? she goes on. ?The FDA is so bogus. I?d like those people to take a tour of that wing some time.?


Staff Sgt. John Hubbell is out of the Air Force now after a 10-year career that saw him deployed to Saudi Arabia twice, plus Egypt and South Korea. His mother says he still experiences some of the side effects from the anthrax vaccine.


?It broke his heart to leave, because he wanted to serve,? she says. ?The military shouldn?t so blithely let good people go over a vaccine. There are a lot of people like him out there.?


To learn more about Kathy Hubbell?s quest, visit www.milvacs.org. The Web site also has a template letter people can download and personalize before sending it to members of Congress.

Monday, January 5, 2004