July 4, 2002

I cannot celebrate the 4th of July this year with a full heart.  I do not know, in these early morning hours, if I can celebrate at all.

Yes, I'm proud of our country for pulling through an incredibly tragic year  with the 9/11 attacks.  Yes, I think the world of the fireman and policeman who sacrificed so much; I am proud of the way we did not, as a nation, panic, but dug in.  I thoroughly believe in the principles on which this country was founded. I also think of my ancestors today, and how proud I am to come from a long line of people who have helped fight for our freedom - ancestors from the  Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War II, right up through my former husband's service in the Air Force during the Viet Nam War. I am most proud of my own son, currently serving with the Air Force in Korea.  But he - and two million other men and women in uniform who would willingly give their lives for our country - is why no mood of celebration is taking root in my heart today.  He is not free, even as he defends our freedoms; he is not granted the most basic of human rights, even as he fights for ours.

He - and all those deployed in what are considered "high risk" areas for 15 days are more - will once again be required to take the anthrax vaccine, a highly reactive vaccine which has caused six deaths to date, more people than died in last year's anthrax mail attacks.

It is a vaccine that is on file with the FDA as an Investigational New Drug which, by law, requires informed consent.  Civilians were given informed consent documents last December when they were urged to take the vaccine after the anthrax attacks - and the CDC will tell you that was because the vaccine was being offered after exposure, not before.  Rubbish.  The vaccine has been experimental and investigational from Day 1, and the Dept. of Defense has admitted as much.

Yet not one member of our military has ever been granted the right of informed consent.  Instead, they are ordered to take this vaccine - which is not even licensed for use against aerosolized anthrax, the threat that everyone is so afraid of - or face court-martial.

So here's what happens: those troops who take the vaccine may become  violently ill.  People have had grand mal seizures, blackouts, severe migraines, have developed tumors and cysts on internal organs, debilitating fatigue, fibromyalgia, severe bone and joint pain, deep skin wounds and infections that will not heal, heart palpitations, liver and kidney  problems.  In some men, the body has stopped producing testosterone entirely; some women hemorrhage for years, and are unable to conceive.  Young men in their 20's are walking with canes, because they are  in so much pain they cannot move about otherwise.  Young women in their 20's are bed-ridden.

The new vaccine label even admits much, if not all, of the problem.  Where  the old vaccine label said the reaction rate was 2%, the new vaccine label admits it may be up to 35%; where the old vaccine label only admitted to minor, localized reactions, the new vaccine label admits to the possibility of severe, long-term illness, and relates the causes of the six deaths. The vaccine's manufacturing problems are legendary, and well-known.  BioPort, of Lansing, Michigan, knew - and the FDA knew - that it was producing lots of non-sterile vaccine, of contaminated vaccine, of vaccine where the expiration labels had been switched - yet this vaccine was injected into our troops anyway.  BioPort knew, when it changed its filtering and fermenting equipment in 1990, that the vaccine's potency was just increased 100-fold - that's 100 times, not merely 100%.  It didn't bother to tell the FDA.  And it was injected into our troops anyway. It is a grand medical experiment, whose underlying agenda is not yet fully explored.  It is not the first time the Pentagon has experimented on its own troops.  We know about the nerve gas experiments, the LSD experiments, the troops who were forced to watch nuclear explosions - and the long  denials over Agent Orange and Gulf War Syndrome (and a large component of Gulf War Syndrome happens to be the anthrax vaccine). The Veterans Administration recently came down with a precedent-setting ruling establishing a disability uniquely related to the anthrax vaccine - a huge step forward, but perhaps not enough. For now we force our troops to take this deadly vaccine once again.

We can cure anthrax.  We cannot cure the neurological and immunological illnesses that are resulting from the anthrax vaccine. So my son, and other troops around the world, must now decide if he will risk permanent disability and loss of his health - or a fine, time in the  brig, a court-martial, and dishonorable discharge.  He can lose his health - or he can have a federal felony hanging over his head for the rest of his life.

John already has three anthrax shots in his system, from two years ago when he was deployed to the Gulf for the third time.  We didn't understand entirely what was happening back then; and he was given only two hours' notice before his first shot.  He takes massive amounts of nutritional supplements, as many troops and vets do, to keep his ongoing reactions at bay.  He is one of the lucky ones - his reactions, so far, have not been severe.

But the fourth shot in the series of six, tends to be the kicker.  In story after story, troops have sometimes been able to withstand the assault of the first three shots; but after the fourth shot, they find themselves in a no-man's land of chronic illness and disability, from which they don't return.

There is no rationale, by the way. for the six-shot protocol - again, by the DOD's own admission.  In fact, the DOD and the CDC are right now studying whether or not three shots will suffice, as was originally planned.

But the troops will be forced to take the shot anyway - without informed consent.  We will have more debilitating illnesses, and more deaths.  The DOD and the VA will continue to try and deny these claims; they will continue to accuse troops whom they previously praised for their leadership qualities and commitment, of being malingerers, wimps and complainers.  They will continue to refuse to educate either military or civilian physicians about reactions to the anthrax vaccine, and continue to tell the troops that they just can't take the stress of serving their country.  They will continue to assign them to psychiatric wards to determine why, exactly, they can't just mentally get rid of that blood clot in the leg, that paralysis of the digestive system, that deep infection in the bone.

This is how we treat our men and women in uniform, even as we have the gall to praise them in public for the work they doing for us in protecting our freedom and our way of life.

My son must decide.  He must look ahead to when he is 80 years old, and know what decision he will be able to look back on with peace of mind.  If he takes more vaccine, and - as a Kansas State University study has definitively stated - his long-term health steadily declines and he becomes permanently disabled, losing his ability to earn a living, and going bankrupt with those medical bills the VA refuses to pay, will he even live to be 80 years old?  Can he and his beautiful wife ever consciously decide to have children, knowing what we now know about this vaccine?  Will he reach the age of 30 and find himself in a wheel chair, in and out of hospitals, with doctors who cannot discover what is really wrong?

Or will he live out his life as a common criminal, convicted of the federal felony of disobeying a direct order - and order to take an illegal vaccine?  Will he ever be able to work for anyone - he, who has received numerous recognitions for his leadership and scholarship in the Air Force?  Will he ever be able to own his own home, lead a normal life, and most importantly, clear his name?

I think of John and Angela now in Korea, and of how Angela, at every base they where they are stationed, keeps a bag of tootsie-roll pops in the car, and each time she passes through the main gate of the base, hands a pop to the guard there, and with a smile, says "Thank you for serving."

She's got me doing it at airports.   Each time I take another business trip and go through airport security, I walk up to the nearest National Guard troop, and say "Thank you for serving."  They are always astonished, and always grateful.  But they work to safeguard my life - and yours.

Will we stand up and protect our men and women in uniform now, even as they work around the globe to protect us?

Or do we blithely celebrate the 4th of July in denial, not wanting to know that the very people who would give our lives for us do not have basic constitutional  rights granted to them - rights they did NOT give up when they joined the service?   How can we ask them to choose between the possibility of lifelong illness and disability, or to the life of a common criminal?

I can't celebrate the 4th of July this year with a full heart.  I do not know if I can celebrate it at all.

By Kathy Hubbell, 700 Simons Dr., Missoula, Montana 59803
Permission to reprint in its entirety granted.