Anthrax Vaccine Victims Still Seek Truth & Justice

by Barbara Loe Fisher

It remains one of the saddest stories in the long and sad history of forced vaccination: the killing and crippling of young, healthy soldiers in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Israel and other countries with a crude, toxic experimental anthrax vaccine that top military physicians persuaded Generals to order soldiers heading for the Gulf War to take. In the U.S., despite a temporary court injunction issued by a courageous U.S. federal court judge in late 2004 halting the vaccination of U.S. soldiers without their informed, voluntary consent, since early 2006 the same crude, toxic anthrax vaccine has been forced on military recruits. Those who refuse to obey the order face court martial, imprisonment and fines.

On Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 9:30 a.m., an independent film "A Call to Arms" by award winning producer Scott Miller will be shown at the GI Film Festival, Carnegie Institute in Washington, D.C.. This eye-opening film tells the inside story of how the anthrax vaccine has been forced on soldiers with tragic consequences. Tickets are $5 and a powerful trailer of the film can be viewed at http://www.gifilmfestival.com/2008/08filminfo/acalltoarms.html. Scott premiered an earlier version of the film ("Direct Order") at NVIC's Third International Public Conference on Vaccination in 2002.

The mandatory anthrax vaccine program in the U.S. received renewed support from top military officials after September 11, 2001 when mysterious anthrax powder letters were delivered to American citizens and federal legislators. No one has ever been arrested. A recent Truthout Report says that there are new suspects at a U.S. Army bioweapons lab involved in promoting the mandatory anthrax vaccine program who are now being investigated by the FBI.

As retired Air Force Lt. Col. John Richardson pointed out in the Truthout Report, when commenting on the continuing plight of former military pilots seeking restitution for lost promotions and pay because they refused to take the experimental anthrax vaccine after it had killed or injured colleagues:

"Two federal judges have now confirmed the Pentagon broke the law by forcing service members to take anthrax vaccine from 1998 to late 2005. Since 2005, mandating the vaccine is now lawful only because of the FDA's willingness to ignore clear evidence in military medical records of the deaths and disabilities associated with the anthrax vaccine. Just as the government misled the American people about the threat from Iraqi anthrax and the source of the anthrax letter attacks, it continues to mislead the troops about the safety and efficacy of the anthrax vaccine."

John Richardson is a co-founder of the Military and Biodefense Vaccine Project of the National Vaccine Information Center.

On February 29, 2008, six former soldiers pledged to appeal a federal judge's dismissal of their six year old lawsuit challenging the Pentagon's mandatory anthrax vaccination program because there is no scientific proof the vaccine is effective in humans against weaponized, inhaled anthrax. The soldiers search for truth and justice continues at the same time reports surface in Israel that Israeli military doctors experimented on soldiers using the highly reactive U.S. anthrax vaccine. Several Israeli news investigative reports from May 17, 2007 and February 24, 2008 reveal that elite combat unit troops were given the experimental anthrax vaccine in 2000 without being informed what they were getting and, when they suffered severe reactions and disability, were told their poor health had nothing to do with the vaccine they were given.

Forcing toxic vaccines on young soldiers using threats and punishment and denying them the right to informed consent is no different than forcing toxic vaccines on young children by threatening and punishing their parents and denying them informed consent. Forcing people to take pharmaceutical products which can injure and kill without their voluntary, informed consent is a violation of human rights. Ideology, one-size-fits-all medical policies and industry profit-making should not come before human rights.

No forced vaccination. Not in America.

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"Significantly, the infamous 2001 anthrax powder attacks, killing five people and sickening 17 others after 9/11, were domestic and not foreign in nature. They were allegedly inspired by laboratory insiders who mailed the powder to the offices of two US senators, a number of national news offices in New York City, and elsewhere. The incidents are still under active FBI investigation. That probe, says Fox News, recently identified three or four new suspects at an Army bioweapons lab intricately involved in helping to support the need for the mandated vaccine. They include a deputy commander, an anthrax scientist and a microbiologist. Curiously, at that point in time, the vaccine's continued use was being threatened by closer scrutiny from the US Department of Defense and other Bush administration officials. That review withered away after the attacks. However, the DOD then used the domestic incidents to claim the foreign threat was "real." In the years before and after those episodes, Dingle's and Rempfer's findings that the vaccine was improperly licensed and thus unnecessarily mandated were eventually vindicated by a combination of a federal judge's rulings and subsequent events. After the two officers' initial investigations, the US Government Accounting Office (GAO) reported that the vaccine's systemic adverse reaction rate was 100 times higher than the 0.2 percent rate reported on the product's label. Adverse vaccine reactions include immune disorders, muscle and joint pains, headaches, rashes, fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, chills and fever. At least half a dozen deaths and a warning against birth defects were listed on the vaccine's January 31, 2002, package insert, but they have never been proven to be vaccine-related. The vaccine is not recommended for use by pregnant women or for those who have experienced a history of Guillain-Barre Syndrome. And, last October, the GAO identified a potential $100 million in government waste annually. The anthrax vaccine stockpile for civilian emergencies had been improperly administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, the GAO report said." - Thomas D. Williams, Truthout Report (April 9, 2008) http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040908A.shtml

"An attorney for six Defense Department employees said yesterday [Feb. 29, 2008] that they will appeal a federal judge's dismissal of their lawsuit challenging the Pentagon's policy of compulsory anthrax vaccinations for certain troops. The employees had argued that, as military personnel, they should not be forced to take the vaccine because there is no scientific proof that it is effective for humans, said Mark Zaid, their attorney. The class- action lawsuit had asked the court to block the Pentagon from inoculating the plaintiffs and to rule that the vaccine was improperly licensed by the Food and Drug Administration. But U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer ruled yesterday that the FDA "did not act arbitrarily or capriciously" and granted the government's request to dismiss the case.....The lawsuit -- filed against the FDA, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Pentagon -- is the third of its kind and the latest chapter in a dispute that has been going on for at least six years.It follows another suit by the same group that led a federal judge to halt mandatory vaccinations in October 2004 on the grounds that an FDA review of the vaccine was insufficient. The anthrax vaccine was then administered on a voluntary basis. After the FDA reviewed the vaccine again and approved it in December 2005, the Pentagon said in October 2006 that it would resume mandatory vaccinations for more than 200,000 troops." - Christopher Lee, Washington Post (March 1, 2008) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022903317pf.html

The IDF secretly used elite combat soldiers as "guinea pigs" for experimental anthrax vaccines, according to an expose broadcast Wednesday night by the "Uvda" (Fact) documentary program. Presenter Ilana Dayan revealed how in 2000, the army decided to carry out anthrax antibody experiments ahead of independent manufacture in Israel. According to the report, hundreds of young recruits into Israel's elite combat units were offered the opportunity to partake in a top secret experiment codenamed "Omer 2". They were led to believe they were performing a national service of the utmost importance to the state.....Since 2000, the soldiers selected for the experiment underwent a series of seven inoculations, all carried out in top secret, without even the knowledge of their commanding officers. When various symptoms such as serious skin lesions and pneumonia began to appear, the soldiers did not relate them to the experiment and sought standard medical treatment provided by the military. Once soldiers began to suspect that there may be a connection between the vaccines and their symptoms, they contacted the secret unit in charge of the program and presented their case. The symptoms, it was explained to them, had absolutely nothing to do with the inoculations....Professor Tzvi Bentowitz, head of the research institute researching infectious diseases at Ben Gurion University, said, "The fact that this matter was shrouded in secrecy here while it created such an outcry in the US is astonishing, to say the least." The secret medical unit had also contacted the air force in an attempt to recruit pilots for the experiment, but air force officials refused, saying that possible side effects could interfere with pilots' performance. " - Ines Ehrlich, Israel News (May 17, 2007) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0, 7340,L-3401245,00.html Also see Feb. 24, 2008 update at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0, 7340,L-3510509,00.html