Meanwhile, BioPort is currently fighting a tort liability lawsuit in Michigan, brought by over 50 military service members who are alleging injuries from the vaccine.

Critics also suggest that the administration's insistence that the vaccine be mandatory for troops is driven by politics. They point out that the Bush administration justified the war with Iraq on the premise that Saddam Hussein was sitting on a cache of biological weapons, as well as a mountain of anthrax. To the embarrassment of the White House, neither has been found, yet troops currently preparing for 2004 deployment to the region are all being forced to take the controversial shots. The not-so-subtle implication is that if the Bush administration were to discontinue the mandatory shots program, it would be admitting that one of the major reasons it used to sell the war was false.

"[Weapons inspector] David Kay can't find any anthrax in Iraq, and yet the military continues to court-martial service members for not taking the shots?" asks John Richardson, a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and strident critic of the anthrax vaccine policy.

Even if the tragic death of Zeferino Colunga was caused by the anthrax vaccination, it could fall within the statistical reach of "reasonable safety" -- a tiny percentage of individuals will suffer acute, sometimes fatal reactions to any vaccine. But critics fear that adverse reactions, which often take unusual forms and can take years to be properly diagnosed, are only going to increase in the coming months as tens of thousands of soldiers return from the Gulf region, searching for answers to their mysterious health woes. In the first six months of this year, there have been 700 cases of adverse anthrax-vaccine reactions filed with the Food and Drug Administration.

That's why Sen. Bingaman introduced a Sense of the Senate resolution on Nov. 25 asking Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to review the vaccine program, reconsider punitive actions taken against soldiers who refuse it, and reevaluate the current threat of anthrax and smallpox attacks on U.S. troops. Bingaman noted that when anthrax letters were sent to Congress in 2001, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., a medical doctor himself, advised Senate employees not to take the vaccine because of the "many side effects." And during the same anthrax scare, Rumsfeld conceded to reporters that he had not taken the vaccine. (Some argue that it's safer to take antibiotics after being exposed to anthrax than to be vaccinated in advance.)

Only a little over two years ago, the anthrax vaccine was under intense fire in Congress and the media. It was being administered to a relatively narrow group of soldiers, and was drawing sustained criticism from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress who questioned whether the vaccine was safe and wise. But today, with America at war, Bingaman and Rep. Shays are lonely voices -- even though the very same vaccine is now being given out to hundreds of thousands of troops, and the number of reported adverse cases has skyrocketed. The reason is simple: Congress is not about to challenge the military during wartime.

"They avoid the issue," says one Democratic congressional staffer. "It's kind of like when [President] Eisenhower talked about the dangers of the military-industrial complex -- this is the military medical complex thing that's going on, on the Hill. Plus, there's an unwillingness to question any military decisions right now. Republicans were running an ad [for President Bush] that basically said if you question the president's war on terrorism, you're un-American. People are afraid."

Bingaman's appeal in the Senate came on the heels of the Nov. 19 Pentagon announcement that it was "possible or probable" that vaccinations caused the death of Army reservist Rachael Lacy, who died in April of pneumonia-like symptoms one month after receiving her anthrax shots.

"We need to reevaluate what we're doing in regards to the vaccine," says Rachael's father, Moses Lacy. "These young men and women understand the risk of the military and that they might have to go to Iraq, to go to war. But they did not understand the risks associated with the vaccines."

That charge is echoed by a soldier who claims that the day before he received his first anthrax shot in March, he and his fellow service members were briefed about the procedure by medics. "But they left out all the negative things about the vaccine," he says. "Instead of telling us a whole list of symptoms, they told us the side effects are very minimal and very rare -- maybe slight irritation of the skin."

The recently retired soldier, who requested anonymity, claims the anthrax shot has had a debilitating effect on him, causing sustained fatigue, dizziness, rashes, vomiting, memory loss and chills. "I can't work," he says. "I take steps like an old man; I can barely walk. You can draw a line through my life from the day of my anthrax vaccination and boom! There goes my health."

He also claims military doctors mocked him when he suggested his medical problems were connected to the vaccine, insisting instead it was an ear infection. "A lot of people don't want to hear about the anthrax vaccine, especially military doctors," says the soldier. "[Fellow soldiers] were asking me about my condition and I was honest, I told them I thought it was a reaction to the vaccine. That didn't go over well with my commanders, whose motto was '100 percent participation for the anthrax vaccine.' They told me to shut my mouth and not tell people it was the anthrax vaccine because it wasn't."

He was also scolded for trying to research issues surrounding the vaccine online. "They said, 'There's a lot of garbage on the Internet. You don't need to be looking up information.'"

Pentagon spokesman Turner insists, "Our policy is to report adverse reactions."

Other disturbing anecdotes abound. In 2001, Dr. John Buck became the first military physician court-martialed for refusing to take the anthrax shots. He told Salon that soon after he refused he had a meeting with an Air Force superior. Buck talked about how, in good conscience, he couldn't take the vaccine if he didn't believe in the quality of the science behind it. "At one point the commander said, 'Son, sometimes you have to check your integrity at the front door.' I about fell out of my chair," Buck recalls.

One sick Marine says military doctors told him point-blank he was suffering from a vaccine reaction, but refused to write it down as his diagnosis. "That's what I was there for, to get that diagnosis on paper. But they wouldn't. That left a real bitter taste in my mouth," says retired Marine Sgt. Will Hawkins. He reluctantly received a series of five anthrax shots in late '99 and early 2000. "I'm the type of person, if I'm taking Tylenol, I want to know how it's going to affect me. I found a lot of upsetting information about the anthrax vaccine and I said I didn't want to take it. I was told I'd be put up for court-martial if I refused. So I did take it."

Within days he was feeling severe joint pain. "It was hard to walk. It felt like I was crippling myself whenever I exercised. My body was just wearing down," says Hawkins, who was eventually discharged and has moved back to his home in Norman, Okla., where he grew up as a Boy Scout and Eagle Scout. In the wake of the vaccinations he suffered memory loss and a badly swollen liver that remained engorged for an entire year. He also spent a year and a half waging a bureaucratic battle in the hope of winning disability assistance for his condition. "It was an uphill battle, fighting the military. I couldn't fight it anymore. It was taking a toll on me and making my symptoms worse." (He eventually won disability through the Veterans Affairs office.)

Today, the 30-year-old suffers debilitating migraine headaches three or four times a week. "The V.A. does job placement and tries to find you work. But I can't be employed and I'm not trainable because there's no guarantee I can work. There are days I can't get out of bed. There's just no way. It's something I have to deal with, trying to figure out what is the daily level of pain. I have my good days and bad days."

BioPort's Waytes flatly denies that anthrax vaccine has been shown to cause such severe chronic symptoms. "There are no cases of long-term disability caused by this vaccine," says Waytes. "Unfortunately, bad things happen to good people and they try to look for a cause: 'Why did this happen to me?' And a shot is a memorable event."

Since 1998, when the military decided to inoculate all of its active and reserve troops, the Department of Defense has given the anthrax vaccines to nearly a million troops. It claims that only one individual in 100,000 suffers severe adverse reactions. That means, according to Pentagon math, that only about 10 service members over the last five years have had severe adverse reactions to the anthrax vaccine.

But Meryl Nass, a civilian physician in Maine and an expert on anthrax and biological weapons, scoffs at the Pentagon's estimate, in part because she's getting more than 10 calls every month from soldiers with likely severe adverse reactions to the vaccine. To date, she has treated nearly 2,000 patients, including former Marine Hawkins.

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