In the U.S military, a battle over vaccination
Christian Science Monitor Service
By WARREN RICHEY
January 29, 1999
Tom Rempfer is ready at a moment's notice to pack a bag and head out to any part of the world to fly combat missions in his A-10 fighter aircraft. The Connecticut Air National Guard captain says he is prepared to put his life on the line anyplace, anytime to protect the interests of the United States.
But earlier this month, Rempfer's commanders gave him a direct order he says he cannot obey.
They ordered him to roll up his sleeve and accept a vaccination against anthrax, a biological weapon believed to be in Saddam Hussein's arsenal.
"We were given the choice, take the vaccine or be grounded from your flying duties as A-10 attack pilots," Rempfer says.
"This is the only order I've ever had to refuse," says Air National Guard Maj. Dom Possemato, who shares Rempfer's dilemma. "I'm willing to accept that an Iraqi or Iranian might shoot me and put me in a grave, but I'm not willing to let my country do it with an unproved vaccination."
Of 35 pilots in Possemato and Rempfer's squadron, nine have refused the shots.
The vaccination issue has been percolating since December 1997 when Defense Secretary William Cohen ordered all of the nation's 2.4 million soldiers and sailors (active duty, reserves, and national guard) to receive the anthrax vaccination. Pentagon officials insist the shots, which began in August and will continue for the next five years, are safe and effective. But many of those facing anthrax vaccinations aren't so sure.
The issue is critical because vaccination is a cornerstone of U.S. policy to protect the nation's forces from biological warfare whether waged by Saddam Hussein or free-lance terrorists. Planners are seeking to develop a dozen or more vaccines to safeguard American troops from a wide variety of biological and chemical weapons threats.
In short, it holds the promise in the minds of some military strategists of rendering American forces immune from a particularly deadly form of terror.
But to many on the sharp end of the needle, the real terror springs from a U.S. policy forcing fearful soldiers to be injected with a vaccine they believe is neither safe nor effective, and may result in long-term health problems.
"In some ways they are playing Russian roulette, except the bullet goes really, really slow. The bullet may not hit you for 20 years. We just don't know," says Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer active in the vaccination issue.
"When the government starts to abuse our children - that which is sacred to us - that is when the line in the sand gets drawn," says Tim Watson, a Vietnam veteran whose son is a Marine worried about the vaccination. "This is morally wrong. This is communism when they do things like this."
Not everyone is concerned about the anthrax vaccinations, however. More than 166,000 service members have already received the first of the set of six shots. Only 76 have refused, says Pentagon spokesman Jim Turner.
"It is just a handful of people," Turner says of the refusers. "I think that is absolutely remarkable. It's been a highly successful program by anyone's measure."
Those opposed to the vaccination policy say the number is low because military leaders are threatening to court-martial anyone who declines the shots.
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