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Australian troops not told of anthrax vaccine
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usahog Offline
#1 Posted: Sat, Feb 21 2004, 5:03 AM EST
Joined: 12-06-1999
Posts: 22,691
Now this may not even be of interest to many of you.. but I served side by side with Austrailian troops a few times.. the article here is just some more of the whats happening to Our vets and then covering it up...
Hog

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-02-21-australia-anthrax_x.htmPosted
2/21/2004 7:51 AM

Australian troops not told of anthrax vaccine concerns
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Australia injected soldiers headed to Iraq with an anthrax vaccine without telling them that forces who received the vaccine before going to Afghanistan had fallen ill, officials said Saturday.
Tony Austin, the defense health services director-general, defended the military's decision to keep quiet about the possible side effects of the vaccine, saying he had no definitive evidence the two were linked.

Austin said the forces already were being deployed to a stressful environment in Iraq and he had no proof that the problems were likely to recur.
"So I think to have advised people of that would have been quite counterproductive. I think that would have increased anxiety levels amongst our people," he said.

Defense documents released Saturday showed that almost three in four Australian troops who were given the vaccine before going to Afghanistan suffered from swelling and pain in the injected arm and a flu-like illness that kept some on sick leave for up to 48 hours.

In late 2001, Australia sent about 1,500 military personnel to Afghanistan to join the U.S.-led military action against the Taliban militia and al-Qaeda.
The Weekend Australian newspaper reported Saturday that so many Afghanistan-bound personnel suffered temporary reactions to the vaccine that the anthrax vaccination program was suspended for two months in November 2001.
Vaccinations were resumed without telling troops heading to Iraq a year later of the side effects. Around 2,000 Australian troops were deployed to Iraq.

Austin said while he could not guarantee that the British-made vaccine was 100% safe, he could reassure inoculated troops and their families that their health had not been jeopardized.

"To this day, I have no evidence to suggest that the complications we saw in Afghanistan were directly attributable to the vaccine," he said.

Austin added unusual rates of adverse reactions had not been found in subsequent vaccinations.

In 2003, 52 Australian defense personnel were banned from serving in Iraq after they refused to take the anthrax vaccine.

Meanwhile...................................
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ADF denies keeping anthrax vaccine effects secret
Last Update: Sunday, February 22, 2004. 0:19am (AEDT)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1050348.htm

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has moved to reassure the families of soldiers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan of the safety of the anthrax vaccine they were given.

This follows a newspaper report today claiming the vaccination program in Afghanistan was suspended for two months because of side effects suffered by some troops.

The report also claims that soldiers in Iraq were not told this.

The director general of defence health services, Air Commodore Tony Austin, says the delay was caused by a minor concern over some vaccine recipients, whose side effects were not serious.

He says the program resumed once the vaccine was confirmed as pure and effective.

He stresses there was never any cause for alarm.

"The international literature continues to confirm that the vaccine is safe," he said.

"Secondly, we monitor their health comprehensively, as men and women of the ADF they undergo periodic health assessments.

"But I do want to reassure them that we do not do these things lightly, and that we believe, based on good solid scientific evidence, that the program was safe and effective."

In other developments:
a.. The Federal Opposition says it is very concerned that troops sent to Iraq were not told about the adverse reactions of anthrax vaccinations.
(Full Story)


usahog Offline
#2 Posted: Sat, Feb 21 2004, 5:11 AM EST
Joined: 12-06-1999
Posts: 22,691
http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,8742389^421,00.html
Anthrax shots made troops sick
By Cameron Stewart and Michael McKinnon
February 21, 2004

THE SAS and other Australian forces sent to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban suffered severe side effects from the anthrax vaccine, according to confidential Defence documents.

The documents also reveal that 97 crew aboard HMAS Darwin in the Gulf last year reported ill after being given the controversial vaccine.

Only a year earlier, the temporary side effects of the anthrax vaccine among troops bound for Afghanistan were so severe that the entire vaccination program for the 1550-strong deployment was suspended for two months.

However, the Howard Government did not disclose this to the troops bound for Iraq last year, who were also required to have the anthrax vaccination.

Defence documents obtained through Freedom of Information laws show that senior officers of the Australian Defence Force have expressed private concern about anthrax vaccine batches on several occasions in recent years.

Asked during a Senate estimates hearing this week if the ADF had any concerns over reactions or side effects, the head of the defence force's health service, Air Commodore Tony Austin, said: "No, we have not."

But an email sent to Commodore Austin on June 3 last year by another senior defence doctor, and obtained by The Weekend Australian, states that 97 sailors fell ill on HMAS Darwin after being given the injection.

"HMAS Darwin has 251 personnel, 97 completed an adverse reaction pro forma - giving an adverse reaction rate of 38 per cent," says the email, written by Colonel Stephan Rudzki.

"I'm not sure what is going on, but there appears to be a problem with the UK (anthrax) vaccine."

The federal Government yesterday played down the seriousness of the incident, saying that only one of those 97 sailors who reported ill on HMAS Darwin required medical attention.

But Defence documents reveal that the ADF's problems with batches of the anthrax vaccine date back to November 2001, when the entire anthrax vaccination program for the military deployment to Afghanistan was secretly suspended.

The program was halted after up to 75 per cent of troops - including the elite SAS - fell ill after receiving the injection. The decision to halt the anthrax program was not made public at the time.

Although the severe side effects of the vaccine did not last for more than 48 hours, the then chief of the ADF, Admiral Chris Barrie, was advised that the vaccinations needed to be stopped to ensure the safety of troops in a war zone.

"(Defence) has reported a very high rate of adverse events being suffered by personnel," a briefing note from defence doctors to Admiral Barrie on November 15, 2001, states.

"(Defence) is concerned that such reactions could be operationally significant if the units concerned receive their vaccinations after being deployed.

"All units involved in this vaccination campaign have been told to cease use of the UK anthrax vaccine until further notice."

Internal documents state that the side effects from the vaccine included "swelling and pain severe enough for (troops) not to be able to use the affected arm, and flu-like illness severe enough for some personnel to require sick leave for 24-48 hours".

Defence initially suspected that the problems were caused by a bad batch of anthrax vaccine, but subsequent laboratory tests disproved this, and the cause of the Afghanistan health problems remains a mystery.

Early last year, Australian sailors and troops preparing to deploy for Iraq were told that the vaccine was safe, and that side effects would be no more than that resulting from a tetanus injection. The ADF did not tell troops heading to Iraq about the severity of the temporary health problems experienced by the SAS and others deployed to Afghanistan a year earlier.

Even so, 52 defence men and women refused to take the anthrax injection and were banned from serving in the Iraqi theatre. Of these, 42 were already deployed on navy ships and were flown back to Australia amid much publicity.

The Government has defended its decision to require anthrax injections for troops in Iraq, saying that it had a duty of care to protect them against possible anthrax attacks.

It says the vaccine is safe and that side effects are generally mild, notwithstanding the problems encountered in Afghanistan and on HMAS Darwin in the Gulf.
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