Pentagon lied to Congress about dangers of Anthrax vaccine

[shance]

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- The Pentagon never told Congress about more than 20,000 hospitalizations involving troops who'd taken the anthrax vaccine, despite repeated promises that such cases would be publicly disclosed.

Instead, a parade of generals and Defense Department officials told Congress and the public that fewer than 100 people were hospitalized or became seriously ill after receiving the shot from 1998 through 2000.

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One of the three cases involves Navy Capt. Denis Army of Virginia Beach, Va. Army died in 2000, after developing symptoms less than a week after his first anthrax vaccination -- and a few days before his 45th birthday. His widow filed the first public acknowledgement of his death and its temporal connection to the vaccine this year. That occurred after she talked to a Daily Press reporter and learned that she could file a report with the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.

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Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Kristin Shemeley died of ALS in 2001, at 29. Her symptoms began about two months after her third shot, a sworn legal document detailing her illness says.

Before Shemeley died, she spent 14 months in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where she was regularly visited by high-ranking military officers, said her mother, Ginger Shemeley of Quakertown, Pa. She says her daughter repeatedly told those generals and admirals that she was suffering because of the vaccine and even pleaded with one of them to stop giving it to troops. Several of those generals and admirals had promised Congress that such cases would be publicly reported to VAERS.

The military never filed a VAERS report on Kristin Shemeley. Ginger Shemeley filed one after her daughter died.

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The practice of not reporting all hospitalizations continues.

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"You can't let Enron investigate Enron, and you can't let DOD (the Department of Defense) investigate DOD," he said. "We work with the people who have been hurt by this vaccine every day."

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/nation/13368280.htm

[HawkerHurricane]

1. This is NOT reasureing.

I took the full anthrax shot series in 1998, and had boosters in 2000 and 2002.

[shance]

2. No, its not HH.

Hopefully this will not affect you.

From what I gathered, it sounds as though the reactions were rather soon after the vaccines were given.