Half of anthrax vaccine supply reserved for civilian population

Associated Press WriterWASHINGTON (AP) -- Because of post-Sept. 11 fears, about half of the military's limited supply of anthrax vaccine will be shared with civilians also at risk from a deadly bioterrorism attack, officials said Friday.

William Winkenwerder, the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told a Pentagon news conference that protection of U.S. troops abroad would be the top priority, but "roughly half" of available vaccine doses will be set aside for civilians because "there is a domestic need for access to the vaccine."

"We are reserving a portion of the anthrax vaccine for stockpiling for the Department of Health and Human Services to use in the event of a domestic emergency," Winkenwerder said.

In the past, all of the Pentagon's anthrax vaccine was set aside for the military.

He also said that, in a break with past policy, there is no intention to vaccinate all 2.4 million men and women in uniform. He said the vaccine available to the military would be administered only to troops, essential civilians and contractors who are assigned for more than 15 days to "higher threat" areas of the world.

He declined to identify those areas of the world or say how many troops would be given the vaccine. It is likely that these areas include the Persian Gulf and the Korean peninsula.

For two years the vaccine has been reserved for injections to troops on special missions and for researchers. Starting immediately, the vaccine was be given to a significantly greater number of troops, he said. He would not be more specific.

Announcement of the new policy was delayed for nearly two months because of questions on how much vaccine might be needed by an estimated 2 million police, firefighters, rescue squads and others who would be "first responders" to any attack in America.

Increasing the number of uniformed men and women vaccinated is essentially the first step in rebuilding a program hobbled for two years by a drug shortage.

It also has been marred by refusal of a small percentage of soldiers to take the shots because the fear they are unsafe. The government insists the vaccine is safe, and hundreds of people have been forced out of the services for refusing orders to take it.

The program was started in 1998 to vaccinate all 2.4 million members of the active and reserve military but was radically reduced after factory violations by the nation's sole anthrax vaccine manufacturer left the Pentagon with a dwindling supply.

The Food and Drug Administration cleared Lansing, Mich.-based BioPort's manufacturing plant in January to produce the vaccine and release 500,000 doses already made.

In the longer run, the Pentagon is working on developing a new anthrax vaccine that could be fully effective in fewer doses than the existing vaccine, which was developed decades ago.

The Centers for Disease Control is studying whether sufficient protection against anthrax could be provided by giving the present vaccine in fewer doses.

Believing Iraq and other nations had produced anthrax weapons, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 1997 ordered the immunization of the armed forces.

Shots started in 1998 for soldiers at the highest risk -- the Persian Gulf, then Korea -- then moved beyond. As the drug shortage developed, the military scaled back, eliminating troops on the way home from deployments, then those in Korea and lastly those in the Gulf.

Since 1998, 2.1 million doses have been given to 525,000 people.