Editorial: No longer a threat

January 5, 2004

The Defense Department’s mandatory anthrax vaccination program has been snakebit from its inception.

Now, in the face of a U.S. District judge in Washington who ordered the Pentagon to stop forcing service members to take the anthrax shots, the Pentagon has backed down. For now.

The Pentagon, having successfully put off any and all legal challenges to the program over the past six years, was caught totally off guard. “The lawyers are going to look at it,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at a press conference Dec. 23. “They’re going to recommend a way forward.”

At first, that way forward was to continue the inoculation program on a voluntary basis. Several hours later, however, the Pentagon backed down. In a statement released that evening, the Pentagon said it “will stop giving anthrax vaccinations until the legal situation is clarified.”

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan issued his ruling based on an argument anthrax vaccine opponents have been pushing for years: that the vaccine was developed to protect against cutaneous anthrax and certified for that purpose by the Food and Drug Administration, but never intended or certified for use against inhalational anthrax, the form of the disease that would be used in a biological weapon.

“The women and men of our armed forces put their lives on the line every day to preserve and safeguard the freedoms that all Americans cherish and enjoy,” Judge Sullivan wrote. “Absent an informed consent or presidential waiver, the United States cannot demand that members of the armed forces also serve as guinea pigs for experimental drugs.” Defense officials said it was unlikely they would seek a presidential waiver.

Memo to Secretary Rumsfeld and his lawyers: The way forward is simple.

The main worry over the past six years has been that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq might unleash anthrax as a weapon. Saddam is in custody. Iraq is under our control. No weapons of mass destruction have been found. Anthrax is not a universal threat. The vaccine no longer is universally necessary.