http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20011029/hl/vaccine_4.html

Monday October 29 10:28 AM ET

US Decides to Issue Anthrax Vaccine

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Decontamination personnel and hundreds of state and private laboratory workers on the front line of the anthrax scare will be eligible for vaccination against the germ warfare agent, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Friday.

``We are recommending the vaccine for people repeatedly exposed to anthrax,'' a CDC spokesman told Reuters.

``We're working with other agencies to round up the vaccine for them,'' the spokesman said, in an apparent reference to the Pentagon's exclusive stockpile of the vaccine.

He said the CDC would monitor recipients closely for any signs of dangerous side effects.

The spokesman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the program, the first broad use of the vaccine among civilians, would cover an estimated 800 lab workers and an unknown number of decontamination specialists.

The spokesman could not, however, confirm an earlier report by CNN that criminal investigators and even postal workers could also be eligible for the vaccine, now restricted to members of the US armed forces and a small number of lab technicians.

Anthrax has killed three people, including two postal workers, and sickened at least 11 others after letters laced with the deadly bacteria made their way through the US mail system.

Antibiotics can easily treat and even prevent anthrax, but only if they are given early enough. Often, by the time someone with the inhaled version of the disease becomes seriously ill, it is too late to treat.

Untreated, inhaled anthrax kills 90% of its victims. The family of one Washington postal worker who died said he had sought early treatment but was told he had the flu and sent home.

Early symptoms of anthrax can resemble those of influenza and include fever, muscle ache and a dry cough.

Thousands of people are taking antibiotics now while officials determine who is most at risk of anthrax infection.

But health officials are reluctant to make people take antibiotics needlessly, because of often serious side effects and because of the risk that bacteria can become resistant to the drugs if they are used unnecessarily.

Tests have found traces of anthrax in mailrooms that serve the CIA, the Supreme Court, Congress, the White House, the State Department and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in suburban Maryland, as well as in the main mail distribution center for New York.

The anthrax vaccine is made by Lansing, Michigan-based BioPort Corp., which is awaiting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to resume shipping the vaccine. The FDA stopped production at BioPort in 1998 because of quality concerns.

Virtually all the US stockpile of the vaccine is under the control of the Pentagon, which has long worried that its soldiers will face enemy use of anthrax on the battlefield. That stockpile appears to be the source of the CDC vaccine.

Officials said the postal service had begun environmental testing at 200 postal facilities along the East Coast and random tests would be carried out at post offices nationwide as a precaution.

The CDC said earlier it had no evidence that regular home mail was contaminated but advised people who were worried to wash their hands after opening their letters.

ALL INFORMATION, DATA, AND MATERIAL CONTAINED, PRESENTED, OR PROVIDED HERE IS FOR GENERAL INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED AS REFLECTING THE KNOWLEDGE OR OPINIONS OF THE PUBLISHER, AND IS NOT TO BE CONSTRUED OR INTENDED AS PROVIDING MEDICAL OR LEGAL ADVICE.  THE DECISION WHETHER OR NOT TO VACCINATE IS AN IMPORTANT AND COMPLEX ISSUE AND SHOULD BE MADE BY YOU, AND YOU ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.