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To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (50493)	10/9/2002 11:20:51 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 281500

Smallpox vaccines cause serious side effects BIOTERRORISM Doctors Urge Caution on Smallpox Vaccinations By DENISE GRADY "If enough people are vaccinated with this vaccine, people will die. And it's important to keep in mind that this is a disease we haven't seen since the 1970's. To have people die preventing a disease that doesn't exist is a difficult concept. The problem is, we don't know that it doesn't exist. There is some potential that it could exist, and so we're in a difficult quandary." Leading medical groups are urging caution in the use of smallpox vaccine, particularly if no cases of the disease occur. Their concerns stem from the risks of the vaccine, which is significantly more likely than any other vaccine to cause serious side effects. On Friday, government health officials said for the first time that they favored offering smallpox vaccine to the public even if there was no bioterror attack, though only after some 10 million health workers were immunized and a vaccine was licensed for general use, possibly in 2004. The medical groups have not criticized the government, though they have generally taken more conservative positions on vaccination, while emphasizing that their views would change if a bioterror attack occurred or seemed likely. The American Medical Association issued a statement yesterday saying that it endorsed government recommendations issued in June. Those guidelines called for immunizing health workers and, if an outbreak occurred, using a strategy called "ring vaccination," which seeks to control an outbreak by isolating infected people and vaccinating a ring of contacts around each infected person. Another group, the American Academy of Family Physicians, has expressed a similar view. The American Medical Association said in its statement, "The need for further voluntary vaccination beyond front-line health care workers is a very complex issue," and noted that the potential health risks of a smallpox attack had to be weighed against the risks of mass vaccination. The association also expressed concern about who would bear "the responsibility for injuries and deaths" caused by mass vaccination. The American Academy of Pediatrics said it, too, favored ring vaccination in the event of an attack. Dr. Robert Baltimore, a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at Yale, and the leading author of a policy statement by the pediatricians' group, said it was concerned that the public was uninformed about the dangers of the vaccine. The statement, in the current issue of the journal Pediatrics, is also posted on the academy's Web site, aap.org. A co-author of the statement, Dr. Julia A. McMillan, a professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins, said: "If enough people are vaccinated with this vaccine, people will die. And it's important to keep in mind that this is a disease we haven't seen since the 1970's. To have people die preventing a disease that doesn't exist is a difficult concept. The problem is, we don't know that it doesn't exist. There is some potential that it could exist, and so we're in a difficult quandary." The group's statement, based in part on studies from the 1960's, when smallpox vaccination was routine, reports that for every million people more than a year old who were vaccinated, 1 or 2 died, 9 suffered from a brain infection and more than 100 developed eczema vaccinatum, a severe illness and skin rash that can leave deep scars and can occasionally turn life-threatening. Hundreds of others developed other rashes, skin problems and infections. Today, the rates of complications are expected to be higher because many more people are vulnerable to adverse reactions to the vaccine. Those people include those on chemotherapy or steroid drugs and those with H.I.V. infection or other diseases that weaken the immune system, autoimmune diseases, skin diseases like eczema or organ transplants. Eczema is more common today than in the past, though researchers do not know why. Pregnant women and babies less than a year old are also at risk. Vulnerable people are at risk not just from being vaccinated themselves, but also from being in close contact with someone who has recently been vaccinated. The risk from contact occurs because the vaccine contains a live virus, which is shed for several weeks from the vaccination site and can infect others. Another concern of the pediatricians' group is that the vaccine now available has not been tested in children. The government's current stockpile consists of old vaccine that will be used in a diluted form. The diluted doses have been tested in adults, but not in children. The pediatricians' group says the vaccine should be tested in children to make sure it is safe and effective for them. "This is somewhat controversial," Dr. Baltimore said, because children cannot give informed consent and their parents must be the ones to volunteer them for testing. Dr. James R. Baker, a spokesman for the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, also urged restraint in considering widespread vaccination, noting that the group had concerns about the risks to people with the skin conditions called atopic dermatitis and eczema, which affect up to 15 percent of Americans.

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (50493)	10/9/2002 11:47:59 PM
From: margie	Respond to of 281500

“In 1944, Nathan Schnurman was a 17-year-old sailor who was recruited to test Navy summer clothing, in exchange for a 3-day pass. Instead, he participated in the testing of gas masks and clothing while he was locked in a gas chamber and exposed to mustard gas and lewisite. Mr. Schnurman believes that he was not really a volunteer since the research was misrepresented. Additionally, Mr. Schnurman stated in written testimony submitted to the Committee that "many were denied the 3-day pass, and many went to their graves without revealing this story." (Note 74) Perhaps most outrageous, Mr. Schnurman was not allowed to leave the gas chamber when he became violently ill. Mr. Schnurman testified before the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives that, "During my sixth exposure in the chamber, I determined something was wrong. I called to the corpsman, via an intercom, and informed him of my condition, and what was happening and requested I be released from the chamber, now. The reply, was `No' as they had not completed the experiment. I became very nauseous. Again, I requested to be released from the chamber. Again, permission was denied. Within seconds after the denial, I passed out in the chamber. What happened after that, I don't know. I may only assume, when I was removed from the chamber, it was presumed I was already dead." (Note 75) ”IS MILITARY RESEARCH HAZARDOUS TO VETERANS' HEALTH? LESSONS SPANNING HALF A CENTURY.” A STAFF REPORT PREPARED FOR THE COMMITTEE ON VETERANS' AFFAIRS; SENATE REPORT 103-97 UNITED STATES SENATE, DECEMBER 8, 1994 gulfwarvets.com JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia, Chairman; DENNIS DeCONCINI, FRANK H. MURKOWSKI, GEORGE J. MITCHELL, STROM THURMOND, BOB GRAHAM,ALAN K. SIMPSON, DANIEL K. AKAKA, ARLEN SPECTER, THOMAS A. DASCHLE JAMES M. JEFFORDS, BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, “John William Allen enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1945 at the age of 17. Immediately after boot camp, he volunteered to test summer uniforms so he could go home before shipping out. His test clothing consisted of one pair of pants, undershorts, a gas mask, and a shirt that had been used in previous experiments and was therefore impregnated with toxic chemicals. According to Mr. Allen, the actual testing consisted of determining the amount of sulfur mustard that would cause illness ("man-break" test), not the testing of summer uniforms. He was exposed several times to sulfur mustard and was removed from further exposure on May 5, 1945, when he passed out in the gas chamber. A physical examination on May 14, 1945, revealed many wounds as the result of exposure to mustard gas. Mr. Allen stated in written testimony submitted to the Committee, *"The government has lied to us for 50 years over and over again. If I would have been shot on the front lines at least I would had it on my record and would have received medical treatment." (Note 76) Section II B MUSTARD GAS AND LEWISITE According to a report published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) last year, approximately 60,000 military personnel were used as human subjects in the 1940's to test two chemical agents, mustard gas and lewisite. Most of these subjects were not informed of the nature of the experiments and never received medical follow-up after their participation in the research.(14) Additionally, some of these human subjects were threatened with imprisonment at Fort Leavenworth if they discussed these experiments with anyone, including their wives, parents, and family doctors. (Note 15) For decades, the Pentagon denied that the research had taken place, resulting in decades of suffering for many veterans who became ill after the secret testing. According to the 1993 IOM report, such denial by the DOD continues: "This committee discovered that an atmosphere of secrecy still exists to some extent regarding the WWII testing programs. Although many documents pertaining to the WWII testing programs were declassified shortly after the war ended, others were not." The VA recently (3 years ago) decided to compensate veterans for disabilities or deaths resulting from the long-term effects of inservice exposure to mustard gas and other agents which blister the skin. The final rule was expanded to include veterans exposed to mustard gas under battlefield conditions in World War I (WWI), those present at the German air raid on the harbor of Bari, Italy (WWII), and those engaged in manufacturing and handling vesicant agents during their military service. "We could have and should have done better," VA benefits official Daniel Cooper told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee.** 7/11/2002 ngwrc.org “There is no provision in the Nuremberg Code that allows a country to waive informed consent for military personnel or veterans who serve as human subjects in experiments during wartime or in experiments that are conducted because of threat of war. However, the DOD got the FDA to waive the requirement for informed consent during the Gulf War to administer an investigational anti-nerve agent pyridostidmide bromide, and also for the experimental botulinum vaccine. The DOD should also compensate the soldiers of the 1991 Gulf War who were also exposed to Mustard Gas, sarin, lewsite. There were many detections of mustard gas; there were injuries as well. It took the DOD five years to admit that “300" US troops were 'possibly exposed in the Gulf to nerve agents when coalition forces destroyed a large Iraqi munition at Khamisiyah that they supposedly had no idea contained chemical and biological weapons. Within a year, the numbers exposed increased to 100,000. Now it stands at 140,000. And that was only from the demolition of one Iraqi munition – Khamisiyah. There were 30 munitions destroyed. The DOD continues to insist that Khamisiyah is the only one that resulted in any exposure, and there is no link between Gulf War Illness and any exposure to nerve agents. 14,000 American chemical alarms rang at least three times a day, from the time the Gulf War started, till the end of March. Yet troops were told they were all false positives. Sometimes they were told to put on their gas masks and protective gear, sometimes they were told not to worry. ``Czech detection teams patrolling the northern Saudi Arabian desert in January 1991 were convinced that nerve gas detected in the early days of the war had been released from Iraqi chemical plants bombed by the United States.'' ``Yet despite the reputation of Czech soldiers and their chemical equipment for reliability, combat logs compiled by officers working for Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf show that American commanders ignored Czech warnings that low levels of nerve and mustard gas had been detected in the vicinity of American troops,'' The Times reported. ``Czech soldiers recalled that even as they hurriedly pulled on their gas masks and rubberized chemical warfare suits after detecting chemical agents in the northern Saudi desert, the Americans who were stationed only several hundred feet away remained unprotected.'' gulfwarvets.com II B Chemical Detections and Exposures. US troops are still using the same chemical detectors (M8A1) that produced all the so called false positives. They do not detect mustard at all, and are not sensitive enough; they detect sarin at a level 660 times the hazardous level. The DOD also dismissed detections from the new German $800,000 FOX NBC Reconnaissance Vehicle, gulflink.osd.mil The obvious question is: "If they were all false positives, why are they still using them? If they weren't all false positives, which is undoubtedly the case, admit it and let US troops protect themselves better in the future. The Czech and the French trusted their alarms. This was just another excuse for the DOD to deny responsibility...our troops were not trained well or equipped well for NBC and they still are not. Richard Perle, Rumsfeld, Adelman, Cheney et al...should go to the front lines. There is evidence that top commanders DID NOT GO TO THE FRONTLINES. THEY STAYED IN SPECIAL BUNKERS WITH SPECIAL FILTERS. THAT IS MUCH WORSE THAN EVEN BEING A CHICKENHAWK. It is criminal, imo.