Medic dies month after getting smallpox vaccination

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  Medic dies month after getting smallpox vaccination

(Published Friday, April 11, 2003 10:17:36 AM CDT)

Associated Press

An Army medic from suburban Chicago died a little more than a month after receiving a smallpox vaccination at Fort McCoy in western Wisconsin.

The cause of Rachael A. Lacy's death remained unknown Thursday, but medical experts at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., were investigating if the vaccine might be involved.

An autopsy could take a month to be completed, Fort McCoy spokeswoman Linda Fournier told the Daily Southtown of Tinley Park, Ill., as reported in Thursday's edition.

Lacy, 22, of Lynwood, Ill., was buried Wednesday in nearby Harvey, Ill. She was a nursing student before being called to active duty with the 452nd Combat Surgical Hospital Unit of Milwaukee.

An Army honor guard accompanied her casket past the overflowing crowd at Morning Star Christian Assembly Church in Harvey.

"I was saddened and happy at the same time that she had touched so many people," said her father, Moses Lacy, of Lynwood. "Even though she didn't die on the battlefield, she gave her life for her country."

Lacy was vaccinated shortly after she arrived at Fort McCoy on Feb. 27 with the rest of her unit.

She became ill a month later and was treated at a local hospital but showed no improvement.

She was transferred to a La Crosse hospital and then to the Mayo Clinic before her death last Friday.

One of the hospitals that treated Lacy diagnosed her with lupus, an autoimmune disorder. Immunization experts have advised those with immune deficiency disorders to avoid the vaccine.

"She was in the hospital for two weeks with pneumonia and at the end stages, when she started having seizures, they said, 'Oh, we found out your daughter has lupus,"' friend Jeanette Batie said.

Fournier said some soldiers vaccinated at the base have shown symptoms associated with the vaccine, such as low-grade fevers, but no one else has been hospitalized.

The U.S. military has vaccinated more than 350,000 people - about 14 times more than federal, state and county health departments.

One 55-year-old man died from a heart attack and 14 others were hospitalized for heart problems but have recovered, according to a Department of Defense report.

"It's a very successful program that's going ahead," said James Turner, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Defense. "It's providing very much needed protection against a very deadly threat we may have to encounter."

Some of Lacy's relatives and friends are questioning why more wasn't done to prevent any possible complications.

"We don't know what happened," Moses Lacy said. "All we know is that Rachael was a healthy young lady when she left here."


 

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