US, British Troops Concerned by Anthrax Vaccine

[BaliBabyDoc]

Reuters Yahoo
US and British troops who may be sent to war in Iraq say they have suffered potentially deadly side-effects from the anthrax vaccine they are being offered--but defense officials insist it is safe.

Veterans groups on both sides of the Atlantic say up to one in three soldiers has fallen ill after taking the vaccine and six of them died in the United States.

Any of the informed at ATOT have comments?

 

[UltraQuiet]

Originally posted by: BaliBabyDoc
Reuters Yahoo
US and British troops who may be sent to war in Iraq say they have suffered potentially deadly side-effects from the anthrax vaccine they are being offered--but defense officials insist it is safe.

Veterans groups on both sides of the Atlantic say up to one in three soldiers has fallen ill after taking the vaccine and six of them died in the United States.

Any of the informed at ATOT have comments?

Don't know about the deaths however I do know that more than a few people have refused to be immunized ( I think they were court-martialed) and I remember a stink being raised a couple of years ago because the company that was providing the vaccine was owned by an Admiral that had just retired. I have not been immunized.

 

[Fausto]

I work for the CDC and haven't seen much in the way of publications that support these kinds of claims. Most of the data is what you'd typically expect to see with a vaccine: most feel fine, some feel crappy, a few feel REALLY crappy. As with any vaccine, any claim that it is 100% safe is inherently untrue......there's always the possiblity that you could have a serious systemic reaction to a vaccine and be hospitalized or even die. It's kinda the nature of the beast. Personally, I'd take it if it were warranted (ie- I would be working with it....which is actually a possibility). The smallpox vaccine scares me way more than the anthrax vaccine does.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Fausto1
I work for the CDC and haven't seen much in the way of publications that support these kinds of claims. Most of the data is what you'd typically expect to see with a vaccine: most feel fine, some feel crappy, a few feel REALLY crappy. As with any vaccine, any claim that it is 100% safe is inherently untrue......there's always the possiblity that you could have a serious systemic reaction to a vaccine and be hospitalized or even die. It's kinda the nature of the beast. Personally, I'd take it if it were warranted (ie- I would be working with it....which is actually a possibility). The smallpox vaccine scares me way more than the anthrax vaccine does.

Sums up my thoughts exactly, but I don't work for the CDC.

So frequently, people overreact to vaccines and then the vaccine gets a bad name. Suppose a new vaccine was created. And suppose that 1 out of 20000 of people that got the vaccine later developed a potentially lethal intestinal problem requiring surgery to fix it. Those people (or their parents) would sue the vaccine company until the vaccine was stopped. There would be a huge controversy just like these people now complaining about the anthrax vaccine. We would probably see threads like this at ATOT. What a horrible vaccine. Oh wait, normally without the vaccine 1 out of 10000 people have the same problem. So with the vaccine, you are half as likely to get it. The hyped up problem was 100% wrong. Not only did the vaccine help the disease but it cut your risk of getting intestinal problems. But too late, the vaccine has been ended forever.

(By the way that example happened in real life.)

 

[The Wildcard]

Hmm i had a co-worker who was in the marines for 6 years and served in the Gulf war towards the end of his career. He said he got the antrax vaccine I think and he said he didn't notice or hear about any problems with anybody, including his friends.

 

[Darein]

If it will get me sick but save me from dieing from anthrax, I am willing to make that sacrifice. Most of the things I have read list numbers a little more friendly than those.

 

[The Wildcard]

On the other hand, my friend could have just been lucky....lol.