WASHINGTON Military ordered to stop giving anthrax vaccines

A judge cited a ban on the use of some experimental vaccines on troops.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon suspended compulsory vaccination Monday of U.S. troops against anthrax after a federal judge here ordered the military to stop treating its personnel like "guinea pigs."
U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled that the mandatory inoculations, administered to hundreds of thousands of troops annually since 1998, were in violation of a law passed that same year prohibiting the use of certain experimental drugs on troops.
A spokesman for the Justice Department, which represented the military in the case, said the Pentagon "will have to follow the judge's order" and instruct medical personnel at U.S. military facilities around the world to temporarily halt the vaccinations while it reviews the ruling. The order was effective immediately.
Anthrax is a naturally occurring bacterium that most commonly causes illness in cattle and sheep. When dried and inhaled, anthrax spores can be deadly to humans, and anthrax is a known biological warfare agent.
Concerns about vaccine
More than 900,000 service members have been vaccinated in recent years against a variety of diseases and bioterrorism threats, including anthrax. As concerns have grown about the safety of the anthrax vaccine, though, hundreds of military personnel have been court-martialed or given other punishments for refusing it, the Pentagon said.
The federal government approved the vaccine in the 1970s. But in his ruling Monday, Sullivan agreed with the plaintiffs' argument that the vaccine was licensed only for use as protection against cutaneous anthrax, an easily treatable skin infection that occurs when anthrax spores enter a cut or sore.
The Food and Drug Administration still classifies the vaccine as experimental for use against inhalational anthrax, a far more serious form of the disease that results from breathing in the spores.