Now things are finally going to get done!!!!!!!!!!!!
This issue needs to be copied and passed to all your Congressmen and Representatives and let them know you care about the Military Troops and Manditory Vaccines for Anthrax and or Smallpox on our troops are expermental and you stand by these being Outlawed...
If you would like the email version of this let me know at usahog(at)hotmail(dot)com and I'll gladly forward it on to you to share with your elected officials!!!!
Hog
Shays wants to halt mandatory anthrax inoculations
By Deborah Funk
Times staff writer
A Republican lawmaker who for years has opposed the Pentagon’s mandatory anthrax vaccination program is again trying to block the Defense Department from forcing troops to submit to either smallpox or anthrax shots.
Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of the House Government Reform national security subcommittee, and Rep. Ed Towns, D-N.Y., have introduced a bill that would require that service members give informed consent before the Pentagon could vaccinate them against the two germs.
Their bill, HR 514, also would correct the records of service members who were subjected to “any form of adverse personnel action” for refusing the shots.
The defense secretary would be required to report annually to Congress on how many troops applied for records corrections and the outcome of their applications. The annual report also would include updated assessments of the smallpox and anthrax threat to U.S. troops worldwide.
Under the bill, the Department of Veterans Affairs would monitor reports of illness or injury following vaccination and study whether the vaccines caused the problems. Finally, the bill would require the president to create a National Center for Military Deployment Health Research to oversee federal research on how military deployments impact troops’ health.
Shays introduced the same plan last year, but re-introduced it in this Congress after the Department of Health and Human Services used a new law to allow the military to administer anthrax shots voluntarily under an “emergency-use authority.”
“An unproven vaccine administered against an uncertain threat is simply not good policy,” Shays said. “In light of the [emergency-use authority], it’s vital to reassert the principal that no ‘emergency’ can overcome fundamental human rights to decide what goes into your body, and to avoid retributive actions when those rights are exercised.”
The Pentagon’s mandatory anthrax vaccination program is currently suspended by a federal court order. The judge found that federal regulators failed to follow their own procedures in determining that the anthrax vaccine was licensed to protect against inhalation anthrax, the form of the disease that the Defense Department says is a germ warfare threat.
Six anonymous service members and civilian defense employees sued to stop the mandatory program. Defense officials want the judge to allow inoculations to resume on a voluntary basis under temporary emergency-use authority while federal regulators revisit their procedures to determine that the vaccine is licensed to protect against inhalation anthrax.
February 14, 2005
Judge wants to know why anthrax inoculations continued
By Deborah Funk
Times staff writer
A federal judge wants government attorneys to tell him why Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other government officials should not be held in contempt of court because the military’s mandatory Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program was not halted as he had ordered.
Government officials admit that some anthrax shots were given to troops after U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan effectively shut down the program by ruling Oct. 27 that the shots could be given only with an individual’s informed consent or if the president waived that right to consent.
“It’s a troubling revelation,” Sullivan told Brian Boyle, principal deputy associate attorney general with the Department of Justice, which is representing the government in a lawsuit filed by six service members and Defense Department civilians to halt the anthrax vaccine program.
Boyle said Rumsfeld did direct a halt to the program immediately following Sullivan’s order. A records review, however, showed that about 250 people were erroneously vaccinated in the ensuing few months.
Additional steps have been taken, including quarantining vaccine stocks, to ensure no one else violates the court order, Boyle said.
Government officials previously had estimated that more than 900 troops were vaccinated after Oct. 27. Upon closer examination, however, they now say that most of those vaccination entries surfaced either due to a computer “bug” or human data entry error, and did not actually represent people who received shots after the program stopped.
Under Sullivan’s Oct. 27 order, no one can be forced to take the shots that the Pentagon says are needed to protect against the inhaled form of anthrax that can be used as a germ warfare, a use that Sullivan says is illegal under the vaccine’s current license.
The violations of Sullivan’s order came to light when he directed the government to report on how they were complying with that order.
“Would I have even learned of this information if I had not issued” a call for such a report? Sullivan said.
A hearing is scheduled for March 21 to address that issue and whether the court should allow the Pentagon to resume vaccinations under voluntary conditions on a temporary basis.
