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20,000 Post-Vaccination Hospitalizations Unreported
The U.S. Defense Department failed to report to Congress more than 20,000 hospitalizations of military personnel who received anthrax vaccinations between 1998 and 2000, the Newport News, Va., Daily Press reported yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 2). Despite policies requiring reporting of all such cases, the Pentagon notified lawmakers of fewer than 100 incidents in which people became seriously ill or required hospital treatment after receiving the vaccine. Critics charged that the Pentagon’s strategy was designed to play up the safety of the treatment, according to the Daily Press. Col. John Grabenstein, director of the U.S. Military Vaccine Agency, countered that there was no known direct connection between the vaccinations and subsequent 20,765 hospitalizations. Vaccine recipients were not more likely to seek medical or hospital care than other military personnel who did not receive the inoculation between 1998 and 2000, according to a statistical analysis cited by Grabenstein. The Pentagon in 2000 halted quarterly comparisons of vaccine recipients’ requests for hospital and other medical care against treatment sought by unvaccinated troops. That means there are no long-term examinations of the health of vaccine recipients, according to the Daily Press. “They track the flu vaccine and not the anthrax vaccine, which is totally crazy to me,” said Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center. There is no way to know how many of the 20,765 hospitalizations were directly connected to the vaccine, the Daily Press reported. Even seemingly unrelated injuries such as broken bones could be due to falls caused by a vaccine-related loss of consciousness. It is not likely that the vaccine caused a great number of the hospital stays, medical experts said (Bob Evans, Daily Press, Dec. 4).
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