After years of denials, the Pentagon admitted Tuesday that the chemical agent squalene has been found in some of the anthrax vaccine it has been administering to military personnel.
The revelation came as Congress began another round of hearings into the controversial vaccine and ordered a General Accounting Office investigation into military use of squalene.
Squalene increases the body’s ability to absorb vaccines, and its use has raised fears among opponents of the military’s anthrax vaccination program that it may be contributing to ill effects suffered by some of those receiving the inoculations.
Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon, who made the disclosure at a regular Pentagon news briefing, insisted the amounts found were “minuscule” and that the substance “occurred naturally” in the vaccine and had not been added to increase the potency of the injections. He said “trace amounts” of squalene were found during recent tests of the vaccine by the Food and Drug Administration, which was using improved methods of detection.
“We’ve been told for three years there is no squalene in the anthrax vaccine, then suddenly we are told, `Oh yes, it’s there, but it’s no big deal–it’s everywhere,'” said Rep. Jack Metcalfe (R-Wash.), an opponent of the Pentagon’s anthrax vaccination program.
Until Tuesday’s admission, Bacon and the Pentagon had been adamant that there was no squalene in the vaccine given armed forces personnel, citing the FDA for authority.
Despite Bacon’s assurances that the amounts of squalene posed no health hazard, the House Government Reform Committee on Tuesday initiated a General Accounting Office investigation into the matter, asking the GAO to determine how the squalene got into the vaccine, how dangerous it might be and what research is being done on the effects of squalene.
The action followed testimony from Metcalfe, who charged that squalene also may have been present in inoculations given troops serving in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.
Those troops were injected with a powerful mix of vaccines to protect them against the possible use of biological weapons by Iraq. Many have subsequently suffered unexplained maladies referred to collectively as gulf war syndrome, and the vaccinations have been suspected as a possible factor.
The military has suspended the anthrax vaccination program for all personnel except those assigned to areas of high biological weapon threat.
