Agency Recommends Anthrax Vaccine Curbs

By THOMAS D. WILLIAMS
The Hartford Courant
January 27, 2001

A federal watchdog group has found that the State Department should not continue to give voluntary anthrax shots to its employees until it determines whether there is an international terrorist threat of an anthrax biological weapons attack.

The U.S. General Accounting Office's report this week may undermine the Pentagon's separate, but mandatory, anthrax program.

Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen ordered the Defense Department's six-shot series inoculation program in 1997. He and other Pentagon officials have argued that service members must take the vaccine or face court martial because the biological weapons threat from terrorists and enemy nations is so significant. They insist the vaccine has now been shown to be safe and effective through tests of monkeys.

This week's GAO report says: "Diplomatic security officials in the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency analysts agree that they have no clear evidence that U.S. missions or interests overseas are threatened by foreign state or terrorist attacks using biological or chemical agents at this time."

The GAO also found that 80 percent of 8,000 doses of the anthrax vaccine at eight overseas State Department missions had to be destroyed because they were not used before their expiration date; other doses the State Department tried to give to the Defense Department before they expired were improperly stored; and none of the vaccine recipients at one agency site had received all the vaccinations required.

Previous GAO reports have said there is no evidence the vaccine is effective against airborne anthrax spores. In addition, the GAO has criticized the Defense Department, as it did the State Department in this report, for ineffective monitoring of adverse reactions to the vaccine by those inoculated.

State Department spokesmen told the GAO that its inquiry exaggerated the department{rsquo}s problems and criticized some of its anthrax operation in a way that was deceiving. They said the department{rsquo}s program has been harmed by a shortage of the vaccine. Since a perceived threat of a biological attack existed, the department had to do the best it could to offer its employees protection, the spokesmen told the GAO.

The State Department did agree to obtain an up-to-date assessment of the anthrax threat; to better monitor vaccine supplies; to survey its employees about those truly wanting the vaccine; to improve monitoring of adverse reactions and to ensure employees are vaccinated with all the required doses.

The vaccine manufacturer has run out of supplies of the old vaccine, manufactured by a previous operator, and is awaiting approval of its own lots. In the meantime, the Pentagon is ordering use of the vaccine only in overseas areas it says are susceptible to biological attacks. The State Department has discontinued use of the vaccine until new supplies are available.