Scientists at five U.S. research institutes are finding it difficult to recruit enough volunteers to take part in a government-sponsored study to determine how the current anthrax vaccine can be administered more effectively, the Wall Street Journal reported today (see GSN, March 13).

Researchers at the U.S. Army’s Walter Reed Institute of Research, Emory University, the University of Alabama-Birmingham, the Mayo Clinic and the Baylor College of Medicine are seeking 1,560 volunteers for a 43-month-long study, according to the Journal.  The volunteers must be between 18 to 61 years old and in good health.  They will be given six injections of the anthrax vaccine over an 18-month period, followed by two years of clinical visits and booster shots, the Journal reported.  Volunteers will be given various doses of the vaccine, or a placebo, and receive the injections in different ways to test the effectiveness of various inoculation methods.

The institutes involved in the study, however, are finding it difficult to obtain enough volunteers, according to the Journal.

“I’ll be honest with you,” said Col. Janiine Babcock of the Walter Reed institute.  “I thought after putting our ads out, we’d be swarmed,” she added (Greg Bluestein, Wall Street Journal, March 26).

State Department Plans to Decontaminate Mail Facility

Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department has chosen to use vaporized hydrogen peroxide to decontaminate an departmental mail facility in Sterling, Va., that became contaminated with anthrax during the autumn 2001 attacks and has been closed since, according to a department fact sheet (see GSN, Dec. 17, 2002).

The department said the chemical has been found effective in anthrax decontamination and that it was “the best available option.”  The fumigation process that will be used to pump the hydrogen peroxide into the facility uses a dry noncondensing vapor, so no byproducts should be created as a result, the fact sheet says.  In addition, the chemical naturally breaks down into water vapor and oxygen, which means no harmful residue should be produced, it says.

State has tentatively planned to begin decontaminating the Sterling facility this summer, according to the fact sheet (U.S. State Department release, March 25).

For further information, see:

CDC Frequently Asked Questions About Anthrax

Journal of the American Medical Association Background on Anthrax

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