One Animal Study Raises Questions about Multiple Vaccinations and Anthrax Susceptibility

Why Did HHS Fund the Study But Not Follow Up?

Neenyah Ostrom -- 10/31/2001

Editor's Note: Chronicillnet.org is taking a position on the proposed anthrax vaccinations of civilians because vaccines are so closely linked to chronic disorders. This website is using the resources of the Internet to inform the public about the continuing misrepresentations made by the media and government health officials by pointing out peer reviewed scientific studies that contradict many of the statements made about vaccines that are either false or supported by poorly conducted scientific studies.


Following the diagnosis of several cases of anthrax among people who'd had contact with deliberately-contaminated pieces of mail (or mail handling equipment), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on October 26 that "high risk" civilian workers may soon receive anthrax vaccine, previously reserved for members of the Armed Forces. The civilians currently scheduled for anthrax vaccination include "high risk" laboratory workers and decontamination specialists. CDC deputy director of science and public health Dr. David Fleming told CNN that the program may be expanded to include some postal workers among those individuals thought to be under "constant exposure" to anthrax. The human anthrax vaccine currently in use is manufactured by the BioPort Corp (Lansing, Michigan).

Is it a good idea to dramatically increase the number of people who receive the anthrax vaccine? Although health officials continue to assert that the vaccine is both safe and effective, numerous individual soldiers blame the anthrax vaccine for health problems ranging from multiple organ damage and severe weight loss to neurological damage and total disability.

Even if enough anthrax vaccine were made available to civilian workers at risk of "constant exposure" to anthrax, would it be safe to vaccinate them?

Is the Anthrax Vaccine Safe and Effective?

Anthrax is an animal disease produced by a bacterium that is generally sensitive to numerous antibiotics. It has been intensely studied by both military and civilian health officials because of its potential use as a biological weapon. Until October 2001, the only Americans known to have contracted anthrax worked with infected animals or animal skins, generally contracting the skin (cutaneous) form of the disease from touching the infected animal or its skin. Inhalation anthrax -- breathed into the lungs -- is a rarer, and far deadlier, version of the illness but, like cutaneous anthrax, it can be successfully treated with antibiotics. (The third type of anthrax, gastric, is contracted by eating meat from an infected animal and is extremely rare.)

Vaccine Causes Anthrax in Three Animals

In nature, anthrax primarily affects ruminants: goats, cattle, sheep, horses, camels, and llamas. A study that examined the effects of administering an anthrax vaccine to llamas found that, in the presence of multiple vaccines to numerous diseases, young llamas were susceptible to anthrax originating from the vaccine itself.

The study examined 20 llamas given anthrax vaccine after the disease was found to have killed three cows in an adjoining field. Researchers at the Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, led by Mark E. Cartwright, were supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute.(1)

The vaccinated llamas ranged in age from three months to 11 years of age. After the bovine anthrax deaths, all 20 llamas in this herd were given three inoculations: anthrax vaccine, a vaccine against the bacterium clostridia, and a tetanus shot. At the same time, they were also injected with the pesticide ivermectin, which kills intestinal parasites. The three calves who developed anthrax after receiving the three simultaneous inoculations plus ivermectin were the youngest in the herd, three months old.

When the three calves became ill, one was treated with penicillin and recovered. The other two sick calves were sent to the Colorado State University Diagnostic Laboratory, where both died.

The bodies of these two calves did not exhibit the usual signs of anthrax infection: hemorrhage, "blackberry" spleen, and bacteremia. However, when tissue cultures of their lymph nodes, lungs, and subcutaneous tissue were examined, they were found to contain large amounts of Bacillus anthracis, the organism that causes anthrax. The anthrax bacteria isolated from the llama calves killed mice injected with it, another proof that this strain of the anthrax bacterium was lethal.

Cartwright and colleagues determined that the anthrax vaccine had caused an "atypical infective process" that originated at the site of injection. In other words, the anthrax vaccine itself caused the anthrax infection that killed the llama calves.

"Stress and tissue damage from the multiple inoculations of agents could have further lowered the resistance of the young calves," Cartwright and colleagues suggest. They also suggest that this anthrax vaccine "should be used only with extreme care an in face of strong 'at risk' situations."

There are many differences between these llama calves and the adult "high risk" workers the government is contemplating vaccinating, of course, but there may be a disturbing commonality: All of the adults who might be given anthrax vaccine have received numerous vaccines.

And, because the early symptoms of the deadliest form of the disease, inhalation anthrax, are virtually impossible to distinguish from influenza, health authorities are recommending that the general public be vaccinated against the flu and have ordered an increased supply of this year's flu vaccine.

Study Raises Some Very Serious Questions.

Does the anthrax vaccine used in humans interact with other vaccines? In particular, does it interact with the flu vaccine? Do any of the vaccines mandated for the nation’s children for the past 40 years put Americans at higher risk of contracting anthrax? Why did the National Cancer Institute or its parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, fund the llama study and then drop the ball by not following up on it? Whose job is it to monitor the medical competency of the nation’s government health officials?

Although officials claim that the vaccine is safe and have 13 published studies to back up that assertion, soldiers have reported a constellation of systemic reactions, including rashes, fever, headache, nausea, weight loss and memory problems. Some report developing autoimmune diseases like lupus. Women appear to experience "adverse effects" from the six-shot vaccination program more often than men: although they are 12 percent of anthrax vaccine recipients, women experience 26 percent of the adverse effects reported.(2)

Some sick veterans of the Persian Gulf War suspect that the large number of vaccines they received simultaneously with the anthrax vaccine contributed to the development of Gulf War Syndrome. Pentagon officials deny any link between any vaccine and the symptoms suffered by sick Gulf War vets.

Both House of Representatives Government Reform Committee Chair Dan Burton (R-IL) and the Chair of its Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations Christopher Shays (R-CT) have held repeated hearings over the last three years on the safety of the anthrax vaccine, which both question.

Redmond H. Handy, Colonel, USAFR, testified at one of Congressman Shays' first hearings on the safety of the anthrax vaccine on March 24, 1999. Colonel Handy questioned the Pentagon's reporting of 0.0002% occurrence of systemic adverse reactions to the anthrax vaccine, noting that Senate Staff Report #1397 found that 43% of Gulf War veterans suffered adverse effects to the vaccine, as well as suggesting that the anthrax vaccine be consider a possible contributor to the development of Gulf War Syndrome.

In his opening remarks during the October 3, 2000, hearing of the Government Reform Committee, Congressman Burton presented a long list of reactions to the vaccine that had been brought to his attention:

"We have received numerous reports of adverse effects from the anthrax vaccine. Oftentimes, we hear that the illnesses are not taken seriously. One individual was diagnosed with the flu -- for over eighteen months. Individuals suffering with Gulf War Syndrome, suffering physical symptoms that mirror what we are seeing with anthrax injuries, are being given psychological evaluations and sent home. . . . Last week the media broke the news of the death of a Bioport employee after receiving his eleventh dose of the anthrax vaccine. His wife, Mrs. Barbara Dunn, is joining us today. We are also being joined by Nancy Rugo, whose sister became ill after receiving the anthrax vaccine and eventually died. Mrs. Rugo is now raising her sister’s three year old daughter. . . ."

The anthrax illnesses and deaths experienced in Florida, New Jersey, and New York are frightening to many in the public and of great concern to those who make public policy. Will rushing to vaccinate "high risk" civilians with a vaccine that may have unknown interactions with other pharmaceuticals, including other vaccines, make the situation better or worse? That question should be seriously considered before a civilian anthrax vaccination program is put into place.


REFERENCES

1. Cartwright ME, McChesney AE, and Jones RL. "Vaccination-related anthrax in three llamas."
2. Weller, Sheila. "Did a vaccine make this woman sick?" Self, October 2001.