One of my missions on Substack has been to bring attention to the disastrous anthrax vaccination campaign (initiated during the Gulf War) that was inflicted upon the military and severely injured well over 100,000 members of the military, was investigated by Congress, and then became largely forgotten. I feel these events are important to discuss both because I feel we owe it to those victims and because it served as the Department of Defense’s (DoD) beta test for the COVID-19 vaccination program.
Note: This article is meant to serve as an introduction to the second part of the series. Please make sure you read the second part.
If we want to prevent atrocities like the one we are witnessing unfolding in front of us right now, we have to learn where they came from. Each of these events is typically first conducted on a smaller and more vulnerable group of people that cannot advocate for themselves. Soldiers in the military represent one such group as they are viewed as an ideal cohort to conduct experiments on because they are all relatively healthy, and must to participate in the experiments since soldiers are required to follow orders (thereby ensuring compliance and silence). Previously other vulnerable groups were also frequently utilized (e.g., slaves, prisoners, and mentally handicapped patients) but activists of previous eras were able to outlaw this inhumane experimentation, so those nonetheless seeking to do it have increasingly needed to rely upon the military for test subjects.
If you review what happened with the anthrax vaccines (which I tried to cover in this article—although Meryl Nass who was one of the main doctors who advocated for the injured servicemen has since changed my perspective on a few of the arguments put forward there), you will notice a lot of eerie parallels between how the DoD handled each vaccine campaign. This is important both because there is a great deal we can learn about the current campaign from the past campaign and because something fundamentally needs to change in the way the military conducts these actions.
I cannot prove this, but from looking at everything I’ve pieced together, I believe the collective psychology within the military is something like the following:
•Most government officials do not have a good understanding of scientific topics.
•Because of this, officials will typically defer to the advice of scientific experts, especially regarding things that are very psychologically frightening (e.g., a “bioweapon”) or doing something that is in accordance with our longstanding cultural beliefs (e.g., vaccinations are the magical salvation science enlightened the world with).
•I also believe government officials like to defer the responsibility to “experts” because it removes their responsibility for making a bad decision. On this point, one I believe Ron DeSantis must be acknowledged for that fact, that unlike everyone else who deferred to “the experts” during COVID-19, he did the opposite, looked at the data himself, came up with the policy that made the most sense, and then only solicited the help of an expert to make sure he had not made any mistakes. DeSantis took a lot of heat for how he managed COVID-19, but his response in Florida ultimately provided some of the best results seen in America (note: Governor Kristi Noem also broke from the herd with managing COVID-19) .
•Within the military, a group exists that is ideologically committed to developing countermeasures for dangerous bioweapons (e.g., look up the history of Fort Dietrich). I believe this is primarily because they are financially dependent upon these programs being well-funded for decades (which is easy to accomplish if a climate of fear exists around the bioweapon in question—the CDC uses a similar playbook). However, this commitment may also be due to lobbying from the private sector (which makes a lot of money off producing these countermeasures), or some people being ideologically fixated on continuing the programs.
•This group of “experts” has been able to convince the military’s leadership of the absolute necessity of their bioweapon countermeasures programs. Because of this lobbying, the military leadership has been willing to exert the full force of the military to push vaccinations through. This is important because many of the vaccines designed through this pipeline are unsafe, poorly (sometimes fraudulently) manufactured, and ineffective, to the point that even our relatively corrupt regulatory apparatus would not be willing to green-light them for civilian use.
When I observe how the government utilizes the tools available to it to solve a problem, I often find that when an effective and agreeable but complex and nuanced solution exists, the government will instead use a crude method with many shortcomings and make up for those shortcomings by putting the full force of the government behind that approach. This is why once widespread resistance in the military emerged towards the anthrax vaccine experiment, the Pentagon nonetheless doubled down on forcing it upon the military (as those “experts” had made the leadership believe this was a necessary sacrifice for national security). Likewise, I believe this is why the Pentagon went so far to gaslight those injured by the vaccines (along with hiding what they did from Congress).
If you consider what the anthrax vaccination campaign was seeking to accomplish, it’s very clear the wrong approach was chosen (a huge risk was taken on for a negligible benefit) and the fallout from the unethical conduct behind it (e.g., forced human experimentation) came at great cost to the military. Similarly, if you consider what has happened with the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, all the same holds true.
In summary, I believe one of the critical steps for moving forward from this dysfunctional paradigm is to allow the decisions of “experts” to be debated within the public sphere.
I consider the anthrax vaccine to be one of, and possibly the most, injurious vaccine in history (e.g., consider the recent comments on this Twitter thread). As so many were grievously injured by them, I cannot possibly share all of those injuries here. I will however share a few stories I found particularly compelling:
Army Sergeant Scott Siefkin was 37-year-old in excellent health when he deployed for the Gulf War [received the anthrax vaccine] and suffered from an ailment that mystified his doctors for almost a year after his return. At first his body temperature would rise and fall without explanation. In spring of 1993 rashes appeared that were initially tiny bumps that resembled a heat rash. No cause could be found, and the rashes disappeared before returning, and by fall he had raw painful lesions inside his mouth that looked like cigarette burns, one on the side of his tongue and another on the side of his cheek.
Due to the ulcers in his mouth, he most lost the ability to eat and by winter had lost 40 pounds. When prednisone, a treatment for autoimmune conditions was tried, “his body swelled until it seemed like he would burst” and his family members had difficulty recognizing him.
He then developed sores on his feet which made it difficult to walk, and his raised red bumps had turned to blisters roughly the size of half dollars that would break open with the slightest degree of contact, or as his youngest sister said “it was as if his blood were boiling to the surface of his skin”.
He soon showed signs of infection and was admitted to the hospital where he was diagnosed with lupus and transferred to a burn unit where his diseased skin (99% of it) was removed from his body. While his skin healed, he was covered in a graft of pig skin. Unfortunately, as soon as his skin started to regrow, it was immediately lost.
Scott was kept alive on a feeding tube, morphine and antibiotics.
“Throughout the ordeal, Scott never lost his sense of humor, but even that became a burden to him. When he smiled, his lips would bleed. His parents, his wife, his sisters and his friends couldn’t kiss or hug him; they could not lay a finger on him for fear of causing him pain or giving him a fatal infection. The sight of him without skin was so hideous that the family would not let Scott’s children see him. His suffering was almost indescribable, yet when he expressed worry, it was always for his family, not himself.”
Seven weeks after the removal of his skin he died, with his cause of death listed as lymphoma, kidney failure and sepsis.
Two other stories came from Captain Rovert, an Air Force medic and one of the servicemen stationed at Dover Airforce Base who tried to blow the whistle on what he saw happening after anthrax vaccination:
I will forever have etched upon my memory the vision of a young enlisted woman screaming and crying as she was forcibly held down while the needle delivering the anthrax vaccine was pushed into her body. I will never forget the sad day when my dear friend, Technical Sergeant Clarence Glover, died after anthrax vaccination. My memory holds the stories of those whose skin literally burned off due to anthrax vaccine-induced Stevens-Johnson syndrome and of the infants under my care who were born with severe birth defects after their pregnant mothers were vaccinated with the anthrax vaccine.
Our soldiers’ calls for help have not only been ignored, but their own government, the one they swore to serve and protect, has tried to discredit them. For many years, veterans of the first Gulf War and their families have begged for help and answers. Meanwhile, in a misguided effort to mislead Congress, the press, and the American people about the extent of the damage done to personnel during the conflict, the Pentagon launched Operation Bronze Anvil, a propaganda program designed to deflect any inquiries into the Gulf War Illness-anthrax vaccine connection and to harm the reputations of those who spoke out about the connection. This effort has branded honorable U.S. servicemen and women complaining of anthrax vaccine reactions as malingerers, liars, whiners, and malcontents.
