The anthrax vaccine will be made available for people who might have been exposed to anthrax and are coming to the end of their antibiotic regimen, federal health officials said yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 18).

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said about 10,000 people exposed to anthrax, who are at the end of their 60-day antibiotic treatment, would be eligible for the vaccine.  Those people were also offered the options of an additional 40 days of antibiotics, or no additional treatment with a precaution to see a doctor if they become sick.

“Some of those people, especially those who may have been exposed to high levels of anthrax spores, may wish to take additional precautions,” Thompson said.

Health officials did not know how many people will choose vaccination, but D.A. Henderson, head of the U.S. Office of Public Health Preparedness, said there are only about 3,000 people who were heavily exposed to anthrax spores.

The vaccination program could begin today, with 70 staff members in Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s (D-S.D.) office, the Wall Street Journal reported.  Postal Service workers who choose to be vaccinated could receive the treatment starting next week.

The vaccine is being offered as part of a federal study.  Those people who choose to participate will have to sign a consent form showing they were informed as to the risks of the vaccine, the Journal reported.  The treatment consists of three vaccine injections over the course of a month.  Side effects could include swelling and redness at the inoculation site (Sarah Lueck, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 19).

The vaccine is being offered to prevent against lingering spores germinating into full-blown anthrax.  Studies conducted in monkeys have shown that spores can linger in the lungs up to 75 days after exposure, according to the New York Times. The studies found that vaccine combined with antibiotics protected the monkeys.

Current research does not provide enough information about who should be inoculated, said Washington Health Commissioner Ivan Walks.  “The best and brightest scientists in the country have studied this, and I’ve got all those studies on my desk,” Walks said.  “If I can’t figure out whether you should take the vaccine or not, how can I expect you to figure out on your own whether to take the vaccine?” (Stolberg/Rosenbaum. New York Times, Dec. 19).

Anthrax Can Become Antibiotic-Resistant

A common strain of anthrax can become resistant to antibiotics within 21 days, a U.S. scientist said yesterday, according to Agence France-Presse. 

The anthrax strain used to create the vaccine developed resistance to eight different antibiotics—including Cipro—according to a study conducted by the U.S. Armed Force Radiobiology Research Institute in Maryland.  The study found that doxycycline, approved against anthrax by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this year, was the most effective (see GSN, Oct. 29).

“The drugs we are using today may not be effective over time because the [anthrax] bacteria can spontaneously become resistant,” said Itzhak Brook, an Institute scientist who conducted the study. 

The study’s findings supported recommendations that doctors should prescribe two antibiotics for people who might be infected with anthrax, Brook said.  In the long term, however, it showed that mass anthrax vaccination programs might need to be considered, he said.

“You cannot count on antibiotics to do the work.  You need to immunize people to protect them from infection” since spores can lie dormant in the body for weeks, Brook said (Louise Daly, Agence France-Presse, Dec. 19).

“Amerithrax” Investigation Focused on Laboratories

The investigation into the anthrax incidents is focused on less than a dozen laboratories that have worked with the Ames strain, according to the Associated Press. 

There are between five and 12 such laboratories, a law enforcement official said.  It is taking some time to investigate each one, he said.  Investigators are interviewing employees and examining the genetic fingerprints of each laboratory’s stocks of anthrax.

To date, the anthrax at each tested laboratory was a genetic match to the spores used in the tainted letters to Daschle and Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), said another federal official.  Not every laboratory has been tested yet, he said. 

Office of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge yesterday said that there was a possibility of a military connection, but it was not the only possibility.  “There are multiple agencies within government that have for many years, for many reasons, had access to this strain of anthrax,” Ridge said.  “[The military] connection could very well exist.  The fact is we have multiple leads.”

Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a microbiologist at New York State University, said the FBI should investigate government contractors. “Many contractors work in government labs and would have access to material,” said Rosenberg, who recently published a paper outlining her theory as to who is responsible on the Federation of American Scientists’ Web site.

Click here to read Rosenberg’s paper.

The spores used in the tainted letters could have been processed in various ways, which would make it more difficult to determine their origin, said William Patrick, a former U.S. Army biological weapons scientist.  “You can process the stuff in so many different ways,” Patrick said.  “I don’t think that it will be the smoking gun” (Laura Meckler, Associated Press, Dec. 19).

Scientists’ Mistreatment May Have Caused Bitterness

Several former scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Md., complained about a workplace atmosphere that could have created the angered scientist some experts believe is responsible, the Chicago Tribune reported. 

Ayaad Assaad, a research former USAMRIID scientist, complained that discrimination was practiced and tolerated by the facility’s commander.  Other employees mocked Assad’s language skills, wrote a crude poem making fun of him and other Arab-Americans and passed around an obscene camel, Assad said. He later lost his position at USAMRIID after a round of layoffs, according to the Tribune. 

Assad said he went to USAMRIID’s commander at the time, Col. David Franz, with his complaints, but Franz “kicked me out of his office and slammed the door in my face, because he didn’t want to talk about it.  I just wanted it to stop.”

Franz said Monday the layoffs at USAMRIID in the late 1990s “were the toughest part of my job.  I lost nearly 30 percent of my people during the Clinton [administration] downsizing,” Franz said.  “If I lost my job, I might be pretty upset, too” (Tuohy/Dolan, Chicago Tribune, Dec. 19).

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