BMJ  2004;329:977-978 (23 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7472.977-c

Letter

Bioterrorism and compulsory vaccination

Arguments for current vaccines are based on inadequate support for older vaccines

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Jefferson discussed some of the major flaws of the study by Brachman et al with respect to policies making certain vaccines compulsory in the US military.1 2 Additional shortcomings of the study by Brachman et al have been described in fuller detail elsewhere.3-5 For example, the often reported rate of 92.5% effectiveness for the anthrax vaccine sounds impressive but should be considered against the actual results in which 99.7% (378/379) of vaccinated workers avoided anthrax infection compared with 96.4% (399/414) of placebo workers. Thus the vaccine protected only an additional 3.3% of workers compared with no treatment.

Moreover, officials from the Department of Defense continue to ignore criticism of the 2002 Institute of Medicine report on the anthrax vaccine.w1 w2 At least three major studies in England, Canada, and the United States had found problems with the anthrax or other vaccines among military veterans.w1 The report mentioned on page 93 . . . [Full text of this article]

Walter R Schumm, professor

School of Family Studies and Human Services, Kansas State University, Justin Hall, 1700 Anderson Avenue, Manhattan, KS 66506-1403, USA Schumm@humec.ksu.edu


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Relevant Article

Bioterrorism and compulsory vaccination
Tom Jefferson
BMJ 2004 329: 524-525. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Schumm, W R, Nazarinia, R R, Bosch, K R (2009). Unanswered questions and ethical issues concerning US biodefence research. J. Med. Ethics 35: 594-598 [Abstract] [Full text]  
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