When it comes to vaccines, let soldiers call the shots

[HARDCORE]

Great editorial!!!
I snipped a portion for those who believe the military wouldn't use their own for experiments:
"For decades, the U.S. military supervised the most atrocious violation of the soldiers and sailors under its command. Thousands of Navy personnel were exposed, deliberately, to mustard gas during World War II, then their injuries ignored. This sort of outrage went on for years, from the army trotting out troops to be exposed to the radiation from atomic blasts -- between 1945 and 1962, a quarter of a million soldiers were needlessly subjected to nuclear blasts -- to its stonewalling victims of Agent Orange after the Vietnam War, to its neglect of the snowballing Gulf War Syndrome problem".
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Subject: Chicago Sun-Times - 12/24/03

Chicago Sun-Times

December 24, 2003 Wednesday

SECTION: EDITORIAL; Pg. 43

LENGTH: 330 words

HEADLINE: When it comes to vaccines, let soldiers call the shots

BYLINE: Editorials

BODY:
Soldiers must obey orders. Normally that would begin and end our thinking regarding the U.S. military's desire to inoculate its troops against anthrax.

But the military, which has performed so skillfully and admirably during warfare, has a terrible record when it comes to guarding the health of its personnel off the battlefield, and has lost the right to dictate, unquestioned, what troops should be required to automatically undergo.

For decades, the U.S. military supervised the most atrocious violation of the soldiers and sailors under its command. Thousands of Navy personnel were exposed, deliberately, to mustard gas during World War II, then their injuries ignored. This sort of outrage went on for years, from the army trotting out troops to be exposed to the radiation from atomic blasts -- between 1945 and 1962, a quarter of a million soldiers were needlessly subjected to nuclear blasts -- to its stonewalling victims of Agent Orange after the Vietnam War, to its neglect of the snowballing Gulf War Syndrome problem.

We were not surprised that hundreds of active-duty troops refused to take the anthrax vaccine, preferring punishment or even discharge to the empty assurances of the military that the vaccine -- which has caused deaths and injury -- was safe.

We agree with the U.S. district court that members of the armed forces should not be compelled to be "guinea pigs for experimental drugs." We have a volunteer army, so that sense of choice should be extended to intrusive medical procedures such as injections. Obviously, a command structure needs to be in place in the military. But the military has lost its right to inflict medical experiments on its soldiers, in light of what a National Academy of Sciences panel called "a well-ingrained pattern of abuse and neglect." That pattern will have to be ancient history before the military finds itself in a position to be completely trusted by those of whom it already asks so much.