Vaccine caused illness
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www.fayettevillenc.com/story.php?Template=local&Story=6787445
The Fayettville Observer, NCM
Published on: Monday, Jan 17, 2005
By Kevin Maurer
Staff writer
Tech. Sgt. Lavester Brown almost died last year when his heart swelled to
twice normal size hours after he received an anthrax vaccination. A few
months later, he had to have a heart transplant.
Brown said he believes the shot caused his heart problem and that adverse
reactions to the anthrax vaccination are more common in blacks.
The Air Force said it has not found evidence to support Brown's claim.
Brown was a C-130 crew chief with 14 years in the Air Force. He said he was
in great shape - he played basketball three times a week - and never smoked,
drank or used drugs. He does suffer from glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase
(G6PD) deficiency, a genetic condition that is present in an estimated 10
percent to 15 percent of black men in the United States. The condition can
cause red blood cells to break down when exposed to bacterial infections or
certain drugs.
No effect
The Air Force said the genetic deficiency had no effect.
''The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the ACIP (the military's
Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices) have not found a need to
restrict any vaccination in people who are G6PD deficient," Col. Eden
Murrie, chief of the programs and legislation division of the Office of
Legislative Liaison, wrote after Brown sent a letter to U.S. Sen. Elizabeth
Dole, a North Carolina Republican.
But according to Brown, a note in his medical records asked personnel to
''use caution" when administering vaccinations.
In 2003, he was ordered to get smallpox and anthrax vaccinations while
deployed to Qatar. The anthrax immunization consists of three injections
given two weeks apart followed by three additional injections given at
intervals of six, 12 and 18 months.
On Feb. 27, 2004, his fourth anthrax shot was due. Within hours of the
fourth shot, he was in the emergency room at Womack Army Medical Center. At
first, he said, he was given some medicine and sent home. But he got worse
and went back. By the time of the second visit, he could barely breathe and
his pulse was racing. He said his wife insisted that doctors take a chest
X-ray. It revealed that his heart was twice its normal size and was failing.
''I've never been ill like that before," Brown said. ''They couldn't believe
that I walked into the facility."
Brown was sent to the medical center at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. He received a new heart Oct. 27.
On the same day that Brown got his heart, Judge Emmett Sullivan of the U.S.
District Court for the District of Columbia declared the involuntary anthrax
vaccination program illegal without informed consent from service members.
The Department of Defense asked the Department of Health and Human Services
last month for emergency authority to resume the anthrax vaccination program
for military personnel. No decision has been made, Pentagon officials said.
The Air Force continues to contend that the vaccinations are an essential
safeguard for service members.
''The DOD continues its anthrax and smallpox vaccination programs because
anthrax and smallpox virus do not require sophisticated weapons delivery
systems," Murrie wrote. ''Our biodefense vaccination programs are designed
to keep service members healthy and give them their best chance to return
home to their loved ones safely."
Medical retirement
Brown, meanwhile, has had to medically retire from the military.
In the letter he sent to Dole's office in October, Brown asked for an
investigation of the safety of the military vaccination program. He said in
the letter that he believes the Pentagon is failing ''to acknowledge a
genetically linked risk of serious reactions to one or both vaccines for
African-American service members."
''I love the Air Force, but I want to know why, if a soldier tells you
medically, 'I can't take that,' why is that person not given a choice if it
puts their life in danger," Brown said in an interview at his home before
Christmas.
The Air Force response by Murrie came Dec. 6. A working group said in
October that the information gathered was ''insufficient to move away from
neutrality to favor or reject a causal association" between the vaccinations
and the kind of heart problem Brown experienced. Such conditions "occur at
the same rate among anthrax-vaccinated and unvaccinated personnel without
differences by ethnicity," Murrie wrote.
The military is continuing to study the issue. The Advisory Committee on
Immunization Practices and the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board working
group have said that more evaluation is needed.
A spokeswoman in Dole's office said the senator is pleased that Brown's
concerns are getting attention.
''We'll wait to see what those investigations yield," said Katie Norman,
Dole's deputy press secretary.
Staff writer Kevin Maurer can be reached at [email protected] or
486-3587
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