Anthrax vaccine
raises suspicions

Several stationed here have
refused the military's shots,
doubting their safety and
effectiveness

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

The mother of a Kaneohe Marine who has refused on at least two separate occasions to take anthrax inoculations says she questions whether the vaccine is safe.

However, a Kaneohe spokesman disputes her claims, saying that "the vaccine was thoroughly tested before it was sent out."

Mary Cooper, the mother of Pvt. Adam Cooper, told the Star-Bulletin in a telephone interview from her home in New York that her son is willing to sign a waiver releasing the military from any liability.

Adam Cooper is the second Kaneohe Marine to publicly declare his opposition to the controversial vaccinations.

Roman Lezo, a mechanic at Kaneohe, was the first to go public last month. For refusing to take the shots, he has been demoted from lance corporal to private, assigned extra duty, restricted to barracks and had his pay docked.

Mary Cooper said she is bothered by reports involving the sole manufacturer of the vaccine -- Bioport Corp., formerly known as Michigan Biological Products Institute.

She said the Food and Drug Administration has cited the company in the past.

"The company received a warning letter from the FDA threatening to shut it down," she said. "They have no guarantee that the vaccine will save your life."

Virginia Stephanakis, spokeswoman for the Army surgeon general's office, acknowledged the company did have problems in the past, "but none of those problems were so severe that it prevented the FDA from approving or releasing the vaccine."

"To be doubly sure," Stephanakis said, "we have a contract with another company that independently tests the vaccine."

Stephanakis, who has had two of the six inoculations, said some of the production plant's difficulties stem from the fact that it "was an aging facility" and had problems that were not related to anthrax.

Adam Cooper, 20, is one of 14 Kaneohe Marines who have refused to take the inoculations against the anthrax bio-warfare agent. Two have been court-martialed. Others have received administrative punishments, but so far no one in Hawaii has been discharged.

Three sailors at Pearl Harbor also have refused to be inoculated.

Some 200 service members worldwide -- about one-tenth of 1 percent of the U.S. military force -- have refused to take the vaccine. The Pentagon has said that 218,000 have been vaccinated. Current plans call for inoculating 2.4 million service members by 2003 under the mandatory inoculation program.

Refusing the shots is considered disobeying a direct and lawful order, and those who refuse are subject to administrative and disciplinary actions, said Maj. Jeffrey Nyhart, Marine Corps spokesman.

Anthrax is a bacterial disease that occurs naturally in sheep and cattle. When turned into an aerosol biological weapon, it is lethal if inhaled. A House congressional committee is now holding hearings on the military's mandatory vaccination program.

Mary Cooper said her son called her from Okinawa, where his unit had been deployed when he was first ordered to take the vaccination at the end of November.

"He wanted to know more about it because there was controversy," she said.

She said she is concerned the current lot of vaccine is not safe.

"Get rid of the old vaccine and make some new stuff, because it was produced under some very bad conditions," she said. "It has made people sick."

She said her son was asked twice to take the vaccinations and refused on both occasions. The vaccination is administered in six doses over 18 months.

Each time, he was given an Article 15, or a nonjudicial punishment, demoted in rank, had his pay docked and fined. Adam Cooper, whose two-year enlistment ends this summer, has been demoted from lance corporal to private.

"He doesn't want something pumped into his blood that he doesn't know what it is," his mother said. "If it is so controversial, why we don't we stop it? France has stopped it. England has stopped it. They have a waiver program. Why can't we have one?"

In the end, Mary Cooper believes the Defense Department hasn't been honest. "Their past history is bad," she said. The military insists the vaccine, approved by the FDA in 1970, is safe and effective. But critics like Cooper allege the Pentagon is not providing reliable information. They maintain more people are having adverse reaction to the shots than the military has reported.