Many have asked me if Ivins' anthrax vaccinations or meds might have contributed to his mental state. Bruce admitted a family history of emotional problems, his brother Tom appears psychiatrically impaired, and I don't mean to make light of this history.
However, the answer to whether anthrax vaccine leads to mental disorders is a resounding YES. The National Academy of Science studied anthrax vaccine for Congress, publishing its report in 2002. Table G-3 of the report summarizes data supplied to the Academy by the military from the Defense Medical Surveillance System database on hospitalization rates in 300,000 soldiers, before and after receiving anthrax immunizations.
In those who received 1-3 doses of vaccine, hospitalizations for affective psychosis were 4.95 times greater after vaccination than before receiving any anthrax vaccine. For other nonorganic psychoses, the rate was 4.82 times higher. Hospitalizations for neurotic disorders were 2.63 times higher. Hospitalizations for personality disorders were 4.66 times higher. Hospitalizations for drug dependence were 5.64 times higher. Hospitalizations for adjustment reaction were 2.96 times higher. For depressive disorder, not otherwise classified, the rate was 2.76 times higher.
Amazing statistics.
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Dr. Nass:
Yesterday, the Washington Post revealed details on when the FBI thinks Dr. Ivins went to Princeton to mail the first set of letters:
...
Meanwhile, bits of fresh information continued to come out. A partial log of Ivins's work hours shows that he worked late in the lab on the evening of Sunday, Sept. 16, signing out at 9:52 p.m. after two hours and 15 minutes. The next morning, the sources said, he showed up as usual but stayed only briefly before taking leave hours. Authorities assume that he drove to Princeton immediately after that, dropping the letters in a mailbox on a well-traveled street across from the university campus. Ivins would have had to have left quickly to return for an appointment in the early evening, about 4 or 5 p.m.
...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/07/AR2008080703443_pf.html
However, on page 8 of the FBI affidavit:
...
The investigation examined Dr. Ivins's laboratory activity immediately before and after
the window of opportunity for the mailing of the Post and Brokaw letters to New York which
began at 5:00 p.m. Monday, September 17,2001 and ended at noon on Tuesday, September 18,
2001.
....
http://www.usdoj.gov/amerithrax/07-524-M-01%20attachment.pdf
Frederick, MD to Princeton, NJ is a 3 1/2 hr drive, let's say 3 hrs speeding. So if he made a 4:XX meeting, he left Princeton at 1:XX on Monday the 17th. There's no way, using the leave hours cited, the Dr. Ivins could have made the window needed to mail the first batch of anthax.
A three and a half hour drive from Ft Detrick to NJ may take even longer depending on traffic, which can be fierce at times. I checked Yahoo maps and came up with 198 miles. Did the FBI have someone replicate this drive and see if it was feasible to do on a Monday in that time frame? Regarding lab time, someone covering his tracks (as the anthrax mailer did, leaving no forensic evidence on/in the envelope to identify himself) would have faked his time card to show he was in the lab. Dr. Ivins carefully and honestly logged in his lab hours. The real anthrax mailer would have covered his tracks a lot better. Furthermore, he would not risk speeding to NJ and getting a ticket, leaving documentation that he was on his way to mail the anthrax letters. There were also anthrax letters postmarked St Petersburg, FL. Was Ivins in Florida near the time frame of these Florida postmarks? Find the scientist who can be geographically associated with both New Jersey AND Florida. Furthermore, there were two biothreat letters to Daschle, one postmarked NJ in October (with real anthrax) and one postmarked London in Nov (with simulated anthrax). The defense that this was merely a copycat trying to frame another scientist who was attending a bioterrorism conference in Nov in England is not really plausible, because this other scientist was not named “a person of interest” until sometime in 2002 (early summer). How would the copycat KNOW to frame that particular scientist with a biothreat letter postmarked from London? Also, why Daschle and Leahy? Someone else posted this website and there is an interesting point raised here: http://airamerica.com/content/thom-hartmann-anthrax-gate. A terrorist would have liked Leahy and Daschle, he wouldn’t have anthraxed them (recall they wanted to stop the Patriot Act). This case is a bizarre mix of loose ends, unanswered questions, and absurd “evidence.” Why? Did the FBI think they had to close this anthrax mailer case fast to reassure America of our safety? The REAL KILLER IS STILL OUT THERE! Thank you so much, Dr. Nass, for your brave website. Don’t give up the fight for the truth! --Maure
The spoof letters from Fla and London were to frame Hatfill. They were sent by someone with enough inside information on Hatfill to know he would be a likely suspect with a little misinformation directed at him. That limits the perpetrators to those who knew Hatfill's background.
One of the things that I am working on is the metabolic aspects of acute psychosis. Oxidative stress can trigger that by causing neuroinflammation. I discuss this in a couple of blogs, one specifically directed at acute psychosis (as in postpartum psychosis)
http://daedalus2u.blogspot.com/2007/08/low-nitric-oxide-acute-psychosis.html
And one on how high NO from iNOS during immune system stimulation can resolve some symptoms associated with neuroinflammation.
http://daedalus2u.blogspot.com/2008/01/resolution-of-asd-symptoms-with-fever.html
Chronic inflammation could certainly lead to exacerbation of psychosis and other neurological disorders. I mention what I call the "low NO ratchet", where immune system activation causes high NO due to iNOS expression, but iNOS expression is regulated by NFkB which is inhibited by NO. High NO down regulates expression of eNOS and nNOS which leads to low basal NO which increases iNOS expression upon immune system activation. That high NO then down regulates basal NO. Basal NO levels ratchet lower with each immune system activation. This is grealy exacerbated under conditions of stress (as being in a war zone). I think this is one of the mechanisms for GWS. The low basal NO levels reduce basal mitochondria biogenesis, low mitochondria numbers cause CFS. You are ok at rest, but there are no reserve mitochondria to increase ATP above basal levels.
Meryl, I have to say that this data--just like the adverse reaction rate that is put out for public consumption--is bogus.
The government is NOT tracking adverse reactions. Far from tracking adverse reactions, people who have experienced changes in their health secondary to the anthrax vaccine are being labeled as "psychotic." What the VA has done to me I even have a hard time believing. Things got so bizarre I had to start recording my appointments.
For example, shortly after getting the anthrax shots (I had to get the shots right before my EAS), I began to experience fatigue. I went to the VA and mentioned that I felt fatigued. Did the VA bother to document my health complaint? No. Instead, without explicitly stating what my "delusions" are, the VA just charted that I suffer from "delusional thinking." In the next sentence, the VA would reference my mention of the anthrax vaccine.
I managed to get a copy of a memo that the VA circulated regarding me, in which the VA called for profiling me for my heresy of believing that the anthrax vaccine precipitated health problems.
It took six years to get the VA to run labs on me, which showed that I have hypothyroidism. Did the VA ever apologize to me, considering the fact that my complaints were perfectly consistent with the symptoms of an objective problem? No. Instead--and I have the VA on tape saying this--the VA told me that hypothyroidism is asymptomatic, and that I don't need thyroid medication.
I believe that depression is a symptom of hypothyroidism. It is a symptom, not the disease. So, yes, the vaccine can cause psychiatric symptoms. It is kind of interesting that my thyroid labs showing that my thyroid was off were right around times I was very depressed.
The VA has gone even further than this. Using its own fraudulent medical records that it has created on me, the VA then uses this as the basis to withhold my GI Bill--i.e., saying that I am "too disabled" to go to school (despite having a 4.0 GPA so far). Albeit, the VA says that I am too disabled for its faux reasons that it has invented, as opposed to my real health problems, thus ensuring that I can't prevail on a disability claim. It is a win-win situation for the VA. It then gets worse. By this time, I DO have depression--i.e., situational depression. So, I go to the VA and explain how the VA has made me feel very depressed by withholding my GI Bill. How does that get charted? Without saying what, exactly, my delusion is, the VA charts into my medical record: "delusions of a persecutory nature."
You got that? Reporting to the VA what the VA itself is doing is "delusional." It is a lose-lose situation for the veteran.
Furthermore, I don't know if you noticed, but a veterans group managed to obtain VA memo in which VA practitioners are instructed to DELIBERATELY TRY to diagnose veterans as having personality disorders (inherently NOT service-connected) in order to curtail the ability of veterans to substantiate disability claims. This makes the VA something other than a real healthcare organization. It is politics.
As far as myself, the VA has engaged in a pattern of misfeasance and has repeatedly charted faux notes about my mental condition, promiscuously using the term psychosis, even. If I went to the VA and told a doctor how depressed I feel about others having had to get the anthrax vaccine and ending with health problems long after people like myself were complaining to deaf ears, that would get charted as "psychosis."
I struggle with depression, which is quite normal for what I have been through and for having hypothyroidism without the benefit of synthroid. I am not now taking antidepressants nor antipsychotics, and I am fine. However, the VA, instead of offering my synthroid, would offer me an antipsychotic in a heartbeat. A few years ago, I acquiesced. After a few weeks, I felt even worse. I had labs done, showing my TSH had gone way up. I stopped taking that trash the VA prescribed, and I immediately felt better. The VA then denied that hypothyroidism even causes symptoms. Not only that, when I discussed the side effects of the medication that the VA was trying to push on me, my former practitioner informed me that TD is not really caused by the antipsychotics. No, she told me, it is caused by the underlying mental illness. I have that on tape. It is a rather interesting paradox, because this is another way of saying that antipsychotics don't work at the very least. Are people suffering from the effects of an "illness" that the drugs they are taking are supposed to suppress? That is psychiatry's talking point.
Mix psychiatry in with the VA, and you get the inmates running the asylum.
When mentioning the anthrax vaccine gets you labeled as delusional and psychotic, you absolutely can't believe any data about the anthrax vaccine causing psychiatric problems.
Anonymous, you are incorrect. Congress required the military to keep records of all hospitalizations and outpatient visits of all military servicemembers at military treatment facilities.
These data come straight from that database, unadorned.
They simply show rates of hospitalizations before and after receiving 1-3 anthrax vaccinations in a large military population between 1998 and 2000, coded by ICD-9 diagnostic code at discharge. The data relate only to those who were so ill they required hospitalization for their psychiatric disorder.
Meryl Nass, MD
So, if someone was just quietly ill and somehow managing to function, they were not identified or counted. Is that right?
I'd like to think that Anonymous' last comment:
"When mentioning the anthrax vaccine gets you labeled as delusional and psychotic, you absolutely can't believe any data about the anthrax vaccine causing psychiatric problems."
...in the context of his post, in which he detailed the VA's lies about his symptoms, etc., was more likely intended to mean "we can't believe any data about the anthrax vaccine NOT causing psychiatric problems". I think he left out the word "not", either by mistake, or because he meant we can't rely on data from the government. Either that, or he may have been sarcastic, or issuing a warning to people who try to talk to the VA about this subject, making the "mistake" of referring to actual data.
I'd like to think that Anonymous' last comment:
"When mentioning the anthrax vaccine gets you labeled as delusional and psychotic, you absolutely can't believe any data about the anthrax vaccine causing psychiatric problems."
...in the context of his post, in which he detailed the VA's lies about his symptoms, etc., was more likely intended to mean "we can't believe any data about the anthrax vaccine NOT causing psychiatric problems". I think he left out the word "not", either by mistake, or because he meant we can't rely on data from the government in this matter (though whether or not he unintentionally left out the word "not", it's hard to say how he could have misconstrued your initial post in this thread). Either that, or he may have been sarcastic, or issuing a warning to people who try to talk to the VA about this subject, making the "mistake" of referring to actual data.
Maybe he'll post back with a clarification.
Here's the FBI's theory on Ivins' supposed trip to NJ, as a reaction to public comments about how their timeline stating he drove to NJ during the day of Monday Sept 17 2001 was pretty unlikely:
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/fbi_appears_to_change.php
As one commenter posts there, "When they shift from producing more evidence to justify their theory, to adjusting their theory to respond to criticism, this starts to resemble the case against Hatfill and against the Olympic Park bombing suspect in Atlanta."
Indeed. The FBI takes no time to really think about their theory of Ivins' supposed day trip to NJ Mon Sept 17 2001, to figure out whether the timeframes make sense, but instead seizes on it and puts it out as a key piece of evidence, happy to do nothing more with it, hoping it will stick, until bloggers show that it makes no sense. When faced with other people doing their thinking for them, the FBI shifts to a no-better substantiated timeframe, just because it "makes more sense". What capable FBI investigators we have on this case.
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