Non-vaccine from a non-VA

[HARDCORE]

From Randi

http://www.jrnl.com/cfdocs/new/stori...1208200315.htm
Non-vaccine from a non-VA
On Nov. 26, Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.H.) introduced a Sense of the Senate resolution asking the Pentagon to reconsider its mandatory anthrax vaccine.
This welcome move is long overdue.
Senate Resolution 278 restates some acknowledged problems:

A startling 84 percent of personnel who had anthrax vaccine shots from 1998 to 2000 had side effects or reactions, of which 24 percent were ``systemic";

The General Accounting Office found that ``69 percent of experienced pilots and aircrew members in the National Guard and the Reserve reported that the anthrax shot was the major influence in their decision to change their military status in 2000, including leaving the military entirely";

In the Iraq war, none of our allies used mandatory anthrax vaccine. The British and Australian militaries have voluntary vaccine programs, but other allies declined even those;

Health and morale problems have been compounded by conflict-of-interest concerns regarding the vaccine manufacturer.
The military also has adopted a problematic smallpox vaccine. But as the Bingaman resolution states, support for a smallpox vaccination program for first-responders flagged following a finding that 1 in 500 civilians vaccinated for smallpox had a serious vaccine event.
In a nutshell, the problem with the anthrax vaccine, according to former Federal Drug Administration official and retired U.S. Army Col. Sam R. Young, is that it does not actually vaccinate against anthrax.
Col. Young, who worked in the drug regulatory process at the FDA, volunteers tirelessly in retirement to educate the public about the fact that the FDA never approved the so-called ``vaccine."
This remarkable item, little reported by corporate media that receive contractors' advertising, is now public record:
``In March 2000, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease reported in the `Jordan Report 20th Anniversary: Accelerated Development of Vaccines 2000' that no data existed to support the effectiveness of the anthrax vaccine against pulmonary (inhalation) anthrax in humans." The vaccine is thus illegal.
Bingaman's resolution asks Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to reconsider the ``mandatory nature" of the vaccine programs, to reconsider punishments administered against personnel who refused the vaccine, to reevaluate the anthrax threat in Iraq, and to assess current reports of effects of the vaccines with a view to funding medical treatment for them.
These seem like modest requests. More crisply, one organization of Gulf War vets has asked Rumsfeld to resign.
With Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Ca.), Bingaman also wrote a letter to the White House on July 11, 2003, requesting that the vaccine policy be reconsidered. To date, no action has been taken.
The Bingaman resolution comes one week after the military admitted the death of 22-year-old Army nurse Rachael Lacy from vaccines; there is little wiggle room at this stage successfully to downplay the vaccine problems. The pattern continues: Looking ahead, even the harms of the vaccine program will be exceeded by those of the Pentagon's use of depleted uranium (DU) around troops and civilians.
For all the attention paid them by the administration, however, those vets and service personnel with medical problems might as well be Sept. 11, 2001, relatives and survivors.
Indeed, stonewalling about the vaccine program seems rather to have been a playbook for 9/11 stonewalling. Taking advantage of the natural detachment of time to wear away the effects of fall 2001, the administration is cynically running out the clock. They're trying to consign those who want to know how 9/11 happened to dwindling ranks, like MIA/POW families or those who were affected by the vaccine program.
Making this policy explicit, on Sept. 14 of this year, Vice President Dick Cheney said matter-of-factly on Meet the Press, ``It's time to put Sept. 11 behind us."
This offhandedness from Cheney, who also suggested a link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, and whose former company, Halliburton, has gotten huge Iraq contracts, is pretty breathtaking.
He's probably wise to restrict his public appearances mainly to fund-raisers. But presumably he signaled to interested parties abroad that they need not anticipate a vigorous investigation.
These people are not governing. They're taking advantage.


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Margie Burns, a writer and teacher who lives in Cheverly, can be reached at margie.burns@verizon.net. Her column appears in
The Journal every Monday.



http://www.senate.gov/~bingaman/Bing...release_2.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, November 25, 2003




Bingaman Introduces Resolution Calling for Study on Anthrax and Smallpox Vaccines



Contact:
Jude McCartin
Maria Najera
703 Hart Building
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-5521