ABSTRACT

Dear Dr. Faria,
I have been contacted by various news agencies [including ABC News after the article on anthrax in the Medical Sentinel], but so far, few have actually run the story...A reporter said that DC insiders had told him that soon the Secretary of Defense will announce that the anthrax vaccine program will be halted. ABC aired this report earlier today [June 30, 2000]. The Army Times is interested, as are some newspapers here in California.

Dear Editor,
I agree with the concern about anthrax vaccine expressed in the article by Nicolson, Nass, and Nicolson (Medical Sentinel 2000;5(3):97-101).

The government seems to be placing all its bets on an inadequate vaccine against only one of many possible threats. There are additional, desperately needed protective measures: better technology to detect an attack; better, more widely distributed laboratories for identifying the organisms; stockpiles of antibiotics; nontoxic decontaminants; and shelter.(1,2)

Inhalational Anthrax

Despite the end of the Cold War, the United States still faces a range of serious national security issues. One at the forefront is the issue of the proliferation of biological weapons, and the accelerated development of the capabilities to design and produce biological weapons on the part of many Third World nations.(1) The Committee on Armed Services of the U.S.