Anthrax Vaccine: GAO's Survey of Guard and Reserve Pilots and Aircrew

United States. General Accounting Office.

United States. General Accounting Office.

关键词: Government accountability -- United States.;    homeland security;    national defense;    anthrax vaccine;    letter report;   

RP-ID  :  GAO-02-445
RP-ID  :  235628

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

A letter report issued by the General Accounting Office with an abstract that begins "GAO reviewed the views of pilots and aircrew members of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve regarding the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP) of the Department of Defense (DOD). In December 1997, the Secretary of Defense announced a plan to inoculate U.S. forces against the potential battlefield use of anthrax as a biological warfare (BW) agent. In the context of the conventional battlefield, the nature and magnitude of the military BW threat has not changed materially since 1990 in terms of the number of countries suspected of developing BW capability, the types of BW agents they possess, or their ability to weaponize and deliver BW agents. In marked contrast to other mandatory DOD immunization requirements, GAO's sample survey in 2000 showed that AVIP was at that time adversely affecting the retention of trained and experienced guard and reserve pilots and aircrew members. Between September 1998 and September 2000, 16 percent of the pilots and aircrew members of the guard and reserve had (1) transferred to another unit (primarily to nonflying positions to avoid or delay receiving the anthrax shots), (2) moved to inactive status, or (3) left the military. Additionally, one in five of those still participating in or assigned to a unit in 2000 indicated their intention to leave in the near future. At the time of the survey, two-thirds of the guard and reserve pilots and aircrew members did not support DOD's mandatory AVIP or any future immunization programs planned for other BW agents. However, these negative views did not appear to indicate a general antivaccine bias. On the basis of the survey, GAO estimated that 37 percent of the guard and reserve pilots and aircrew members had received one or more anthrax shots as of September 2000. Of these recipients, 85 percent reported experiencing some type of reaction. This overall rate reported for adverse reactions following anthrax immunization was more than double the rate published in the vaccine manufacturer's product insert that was in use at the time of the survey. Respondents to the survey indicated that they had not reported most of the reactions they cited to the military chain of command through official or informal channels and that they were not reported to Food and Drug Administration's Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). Reasons survey respondents gave for not reporting to the military chain of command included a lack of awareness of VAERS, a concern about the loss of flight status, a possibly adverse effect on military or civilian career, and a fear of ridicule."