http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/abc/20011026/hl/gma011024anthrax_vaccine_1.html
Saturday October 27 12:26 AM EDT
Long before anyone could imagine
that anthrax attacks would begin appearing in the United States, Jenny
Enoch was serving at a U.S. Air Force base in Kuwait, rolling up her sleeve
for the military's mandatory anthrax vaccination.
The vaccination program, which the
Department of Defense had ordered for all active-duty and reservist personnel,
consisted of six shots to be administered over 18 months. But after her
third vaccination, in September 1999, Enoch started having strange health
problems.
"I began to notice almost immediately
that I was having extreme difficulty sleeping," Enoch, a former Air Force
security specialist, told Good Morning America . "I couldn't hold anything
down — not food, not liquids — for about a week. And then I started having
gray-outs where I would almost pass out completely, pretty much at any
given moment."
No Scientific Link Found
Enoch blamed the anthrax vaccine
— and she was not alone.
Other military women who received
the anthrax vaccine said they were subsequently besieged by autoimmune
diseases, and they have blamed the vaccine too. Over the past two or three
years, military service members have complained of adverse reactions and
faced dishonorable discharge for refusing the shots. In May, one military
doctor chose court-martial and punishment rather than submit to the vaccine.
Capitol Hill got involved, too. Members
of Congress urged the National Institutes of Health to step up studies
on the anthrax vaccine. But, despite the anecdotal support for the women's
claims, there has been no scientific evidence linking their symptoms to
the vaccine
In the research studies, the vaccine
has, again and again, been proven safe, with no more side effects than
any other vaccine, according to Dr. Tom Waytes, vice president of medical
affairs at Bioport, the manufacturer of the anthrax vaccine.
"This has become the most thoroughly
studied vaccine in history," Waytes said. "There have been 18 studies looking
into the safety of this vaccine, and these studies have been presented
and reviewed by some very prestigious scientific groups, including the
Institute of Medicine. The final result is always the same: The vaccine
is safe."
The Pentagon has also roundly refuted
any claims that the vaccine may have caused serious illnesses, and has
declared it safe. The military began implementing the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization
Program in 1998. Of the 520,000 armed-service members who have received
the shots since the program started, only 1,600, or 0.3 percent, have reported
adverse reactions, mostly temporary rashes or swelling at the injection
site, according to the military.
Similar Symptoms
Still, the women who became seriously
ill after receiving the vaccine share eerily similar stories.
"I spoke to, or examined the records
of, a dozen military women who were perfectly healthy before the shots
that they took," said Sheila Weller, senior contributing editor for Self
magazine. "They got symptoms within weeks, sometimes days. And the symptoms
were all autoimmune in nature, meaning they were linked to the family of
diseases such as lupus and multiple sclerosis, in which the immune system
attacks the body."
Normally, women get autoimmune diseases
75 percent more often than men, and Pentagon records have shown that women
do experience more temporary side effects from the anthrax vaccine. Women
make up only 12 percent of anthrax recipients (the military is 85 percent
male), but they make up 26 percent of adverse-effect sufferers.
Enoch told her physician about her
symptoms, but the doctor said she was stressed, and perhaps depressed about
being away from home. It was not until five months later, February 2000,
that she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a syndrome distinguished by chronic
pain in the muscles, ligaments, tendons or the areas around joints.
Another doctor said that she might
have lupus, a type of immune system disorder. Both fibromyalgia and lupus
are autoimmune diseases, which are characterized by the immune system attacking
the body, rather than protecting it.
"I'm in constant pain," Enoch said.
"I have chronic fatigue. I have serious concentration problems and memory
loss."
Like others, Enoch soon began linking
her illness to the vaccines.
"I was healthy and active, absolutely,
prior to that third shot," she said. "And when I returned from Kuwait,
it was literally as if I was a whole different person. Finding the energy
to even clean my house after that was a task in itself."
Could it Be Just a Coincidence?
"I understand where some of these
people may believe that their chronic medical problems were caused by the
vaccine," Waytes said. "However, if one looks at the medical and scientific
data accumulated to date, it just doesn't support this."
Weller said that the military's figures
on the low incidence of adverse reactions are optimistic.
"We don't know if it's coincidence
or not," said Weller, who spent five months investigating the story. But
if they are coincidences, they are startling ones.
One 25-year-old woman Weller spoke
to, Ronda Breneman, was a young, successful Army pilot noticed by her superiors
for her boundless energy and outstanding physical fitness. But weeks after
her third shot for anthrax, she developed extreme gastroparesis, or paralysis
of the stomach.
She now lives in a state of chronic
nausea, has lost 45 pounds, and has memory loss.
Another woman, Debbie Lipshield,
developed an intensive case of lupus within days after her shots. She's
been in and out of hospital intensive care units, and is still in the hospital.
Yet another woman, Army Specialist
Sandra Larson, had her immune system collapse in a virulent case of aplastic
anemia 3 1/2 weeks after her sixth anthrax vaccination shot. She died two
months later. A military doctor told Self that he did not think the anthrax
vaccine had anything to do with her illness.
The anthrax vaccine is not currently
available to the public.
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