The military will begin giving anthrax and smallpox vaccines to tens of thousands of troops in the Pacific region and Middle East to help protect them against biological warfare, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.
The expanded vaccination program is the result of an increased supply of the vaccines, particularly the anthrax vaccine, and not new intelligence on the threat of anthrax or smallpox weapons in those regions, said Dr. William Winkenwerder, Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.
The most significant group affected by the new orders will be troops who would face combat against North Korea. Any member of the military who is going to South Korea, or would go there early in a crisis, would receive both vaccines, officials said.
“Just knowing our personnel are protected can create a deterrent for our adversaries’ use of these weapons,” Winkenwerder said.
Some troops deployed to the Middle East region have received the vaccines. Now, everyone sent to the area managed by U.S. Central Command — which stretches from North Africa to Pakistan — will be required to take them, unless doctors determine they are at risk from the vaccines.
Controversial vaccine
Defense Department contractors and civilian employees deemed essential will also be required to take the vaccines. Nonessential contractors and civilians have the option of taking them, as do family members of soldiers, contractors and civilian employees who live in the affected regions.
Since 1998, 1.1 million military personnel have been vaccinated against anthrax. Since December 2002, 625,000 have received the smallpox vaccine.
“Anthrax and smallpox remain two of the top biological warfare threats to our forces, and vaccinations remain a safe and reliable way to protect our service members,” said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
The anthrax vaccine has been controversial because some military personnel believe it causes health problems. Hundreds refused to take it and were punished or discharged from the military. Winkenwerder said fewer are refusing to take it since the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax mailings raised fears of terrorist biological weapons.
Some of the military’s stockpile of anthrax vaccine will function as a domestic reserve for the Department of Homeland Security.
Smallpox was declared eradicated in 1980. Only the United States and Russia acknowledge possessing samples of the deadly virus. The U.S. sample is at a government lab in Atlanta; the Russian sample is in Novosibirsk in Siberia. But U.S. intelligence believed in recent years that France, North Korea and Iraq possessed samples, and that Russia had additional undeclared amounts.
None have been found by weapons-hunters in Iraq, and France denied possessing any.
Routine smallpox vaccinations ended in the United States in 1972. Experts say those last vaccinated more than three decades ago have little residual immunity. But new vaccinations could also kill a small number of the people who receive them.