The anthrax letters did not test anyone's vaccine. For people exposed to the anthrax letters, anthrax vaccine was given in three doses over 4 weeks. It takes about 4-6 weeks after vaccinations start before recipients develop levels of antibodies to anthrax that may be protective.
The vaccine's label even points out that anthrax vaccine is NOT a treatment for anthrax and does not provide protection for acute exposures. You need to take antibiotics while waiting for vaccine protection to develop...and because vaccine protection is variable, and depends on each person's ability to mount a protective immune response, antibiotics are a much more reliable protection, even after 2-3 doses of vaccine have been administered and 4-6 weeks have gone by.
So no scientist would send anthrax letters to "test a vaccine." It's a ridiculous theory.
Did the person who fed this idea to the media (in a desperate attempt to create a motive that could implicate Bruce Ivins) have anything to do with the anthrax letters? Or perhaps work for the Justice Department?
Friday, August 1, 2008
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2 comments:
Right, as a post-exposure treatment the vaccine would not be expected to confer specific immunity against anthrax. However, Dr. Ivins co-authored a 2006 PNAS article that reports increased survival in monkeys given the vaccine in conjunction with ciprofloxin following exposure to the Ames strain. See:
www.pnas.org/content/103/20/7813.full
Unfortunately, the study doesn't address the mechanism of protection. Their supposition that it increases "active immunity" is especially curious since Ivins was aware that the Ames strain is a "vaccine resistant" strain (his words); see his first-authored 1992 Infection and Immunity article:
http://iai.asm.org/cgi/reprint/60/2/662?view=long&pmid=1730501
I don't understand why the feds were pushing the vaccine on those of us who were exposed in DC. at the 60 day mark, we all met with CDC and were advised that 60 days Cipro treatment was not long enough and that those with the highest exposure levels should consider the vaccine for additional coverage. We were told that the spores could become active up to 100 days post-exposure. It appears that the Vaccine wouldn't have helped anyone....
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