"Major screw-up": Boot-camp virus runs rampant (Seattle Times)

[Newsjock]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002051692_virus03.html

By Michael J. Berens
Seattle Times staff reporter

More than three decades ago, the Pentagon created two pills to ward off a lethal virus infecting boot-camp recruits. But defense officials abandoned the program in 1996 as too expensive. Now recruits are dying, thousands are falling ill, and the military is desperately racing to bring back a vaccine it once owned.

A top Pentagon official called it "a major screw-up," hobbling U.S. efforts to rapidly deploy troops abroad.

The respiratory virus now infects up to 2,500 service members monthly — a staggering 1 in 10 recruits — in the nation's eight basic-training centers, an analysis of military health-care records shows.

Since the oral vaccinations stopped, the flulike germ, adenovirus, has been associated with the deaths of at least six recruits, four within the past year, according to military records and internal reports obtained by The Seattle Times.

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[ixion]

1. the neocons, hard at work

making 'Murika more dangerous by the day. '96 of course was when Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich were implementing their 'Contract with America'.

[HereSince1628]

19. That's contract ON America...

They hit us when our backs were turned and our pants were down.

They take whatever advantage they can get, and we never seem to learn.

[Longhorn]

2. When my son was in Marine boot camp in San Diego,

the recruits were dropping like flies. Many ended up with pneumonia and couldn't graduate on time. My nephew got sick at Army boot camp in Georgia and had to quit because they sent him back to training too soon. When my son's best friend was in Marine boot camp, also in San Diego, the prior year, so many got sick that the entire camp was closed and a recruit died.

This "recruit crud" has been talked about a lot on the Marine parent board I used to frequent but no one had ever mentioned that there had been a vaccine discontinued!

[UpInArms]

3. from your link

At Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Air Force officials, acting on their own, had quietly stopped giving recruits the pills in 1987. There had been no outbreaks and scant infections since, Air Force commanders assured the Pentagon in April 1997.

As a result, defense officials adopted a wait-and-see strategy. They waited just seven weeks.

On May 22, 1997, a feverish soldier staggered into the medical clinic at Fort Jackson, S.C., the Army's largest basic-training center. Within weeks, he was followed by 673 confirmed adenovirus diagnoses of Type 4, peaking at 70 hospitalizations weekly.

The outbreak was quickly detected — and deaths averted — because of the foresight of Dr. Gregory Gray, a supervisor at the Navy's health-research center in San Diego. He was worried about what would happen when the vaccine was halted and, working in collaboration with others, had established a system to track adenovirus at boot camps.

[Carni]

4. Not to sound paranoid but could this be what everyone is getting?

My whole family has the cough from hell virus for two weeks.

I know about twenty people with the same thing and it's a tad bit early for flu season (I think isn't it?)

I would like to know more about this.

[Sporadicus]

5. A Bug Was Rampant When I Was in Boot Camp...Over 30 Years Ago

I heard about a repiratory illness that was afflicting recruits at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center near Chicago, so I insisted to my recruiter that I wanted to attend basic training in Orlando (it was February, after all). He tried to pull a switcheroo on me at the last minute, sending me to Great Lakes after all. I threatened to throw a monkey wrench into my enlistment by refusing to go, and he relented, so I went to Orlando after all. I don't know what the punitive ramifications would have been if I had refused to go to Great Lakes, but at barely age 18 I pretty much didn't give a flying f**k.

After boot camp I became acquainted with plenty of guys who had gone to Great Lakes, and each one had stories about recruits being hospitalized with "the crud" - some had been sick personally. The conditions at Great Lakes were conducive to the spread of disease: cold, damp climate, and crowded, old barracks with wooden floors that couldn't be disinfected effectively. Orlando was a new facility when I was there, with wall-to-wall tile that could be scoured well - and were, as I can attest to personally :7

[randr]

6. IMHO--Someday, someone, somewhere will discover

that the pentagon contracted construction of barracks, tents, or some other common element in these military locations that contains a chemical contaminate.
Whenever I see pictures of those tent cities our soldiers live in I can not help but wonder what toxic waste they must be treated with.

[liberalmuse]

11. The basic training...

base I went to looked like a dead zone in the woods where we'd train. Dead trees everywhere. The barracks weren't too old and were mostly brick with tile floors.

I only got sick once with a nasty cough, though I could still do training. We had been making smoke for 2 days and a lot of us got this disgusting, croopy cough. I cringed at the mounts of deisel fuel we were pumping into the environment. I even saw the EPA there during smoke training. I'd have closed down the entire base.

[Rose Siding]

7. I wonder how it reacts with all the other gulf vaccines.

Abandoned in '96, maybe they knew of adverse reactions. At any rate, this snip makes it sound like the US military is simply Too Big to function at all:

Military foot-dragging and high turnover of procurement officers have caused the replacement vaccine to fall behind schedule, making pills unavailable until at least 2007, possibly 2009, military health-care records show.

[NMDemDist2]

8. this one goes to Clinton's watch when he was streamlining the military

not a good choice Big Dog

[w4rma]

9. Bush and Republicans have had 4 years to deal with this. And practically

unlimited funds.

[MADem]

10. TO BE FAIR

...Clinton did NOT streamline the military. I worked those difficult issues, and let me tell you the brutal truth. Dick Cheney was the one who formulated the drawdown--everything from troop strength to facilities closure and weapons systems cancellations and phase-outs. HIS PLAN. HIS TIMETABLE. It was a plan that had outyear steps--you did one phase, then the next, then the next. You couldn't just "back up" after each phase was implemented--it's like peeling an apple, you cannot put the peel back on. By the time Clinton got into office, that plan was halfway implemented. The DOD cash was being diverted to other efforts, to include pay increases that were way overdue (personnel expenditure is one of the biggest line items).

All Clinton did was go with the flow. He continued a program that was established and implemented under GHWB. To try to reverse course without a viable reason for so doing (there was no need to defend the Fulda Gap, the wall had come down) would not have made sense, and did not fit with Clinton's view of the world. It also did not fit with former SECDEF's Cheney's view, either.

Don't let ANYONE try to sell you that lameass shit that Clinton decimated the military. Cheney wrote the book, and America was half way through it before Clinton ever said "So help me God."

I don't mean to be strident, and I do not blame you for repeating this lie, but I just know about this, and it irritates me enormously that so many of the uninformed, right wing, windbag, keyboard commando chickenhawks always try to float that turd, and all too many of us take what they say at face value.

It just is not true. That turd is a sinker, and a stinker!

[liberalmuse]

12. Absolutely.

I remember clearly. Bush I started the decimation of the military and Bush II is finishing it. And thank you so much for pointing out this blatant lie. I've heard it time and time again, and it's nice to see that someone else remembers how it REALLY was.

[ismnotwasm]

13. Thank you MADem

I agree, and I seem to remember that this administration had even more plans to "streamline" military--can't remember the details right now. I just opened my morning paper to this mess. I'm a nurse and have thought about working for the VA for a while. Well this is it. Tommorow I'll go down and turn in my application.

[NMDemDist2]

16. that's wonderful! can you give me a source (i need it on another board)

to spank some freeps

thanks in advance

[annabanana]

15. Contract on America

Gingrich's baby.

[tblue37]

14. Pill or Vaccine? Which?

There seems to be a basic confusion in this article. Are we talking about a vaccination program, or about a magic pill soldiers can take to ward off a virus? Pills don't cure viruses.

[amazona]

20. oral vaccines are pills and do prevent viral disease

The article seems clear to me that they are talking about an oral vaccine (a series of 2 pills) formerly manufactured by Wyeth, the company known at that time as American Home Products, a maker of vaccines and other basic medicines such as women's birth control and other hormone pills.

Another example of an oral vaccine that you might have experienced is the oral typhoid vaccine. It is not a question of a magic pill. It can be a perfectly valid and inexpensive delivery system for some vaccines. You may have had this vaccine before foreign travel to areas where typhoid still occurs.

[Algomas]

17. Bio warfare experiments???

Our troops serve in so many ways. God bless them and God curse their commanders.

[daleo]

18. Well, you wonder about biological warfare in this case

That was my first thought, too. A virus that seems to be concentrated among the military, persists for decades, incapacitates many, diverts resources, can't be eradicated from military facilities - it would have made a great harassment weapon against the Soviets during the cold war. Maybe someone's plan went astray.

You would expect that similar persistent viruses might erupt on places like university campuses and residences, if they were completely natural. Then again, maybe they do. Just speculation.

[amazona]

21. sure they do

For instance, there is a form of meningitis that sweeps around college campuses. A friend of mine got it (prior to the vaccine which all college dorm kids are advised to get). He almost died. I learned later that many kids do die.

Mono is another one that goes through college dorms. Some end up with chronic fatigue. Now think back to folks you know who have chronic fatigue but their doctors think they're faking because they don't test for Lyme disease or Epstein Barr antibodies. Could it be that those people had this other illness instead? The article states it is seldom tested for -- after all, in the end, most people do recover from 4 day bugs and never say anything to a doctor about it, especially not a poor college kid. A recruit is in a situation where he can't just stay in bed without being examined by a doctor but something like this could easily go around a campus without really being much noticed because college kids can just stay in when they're sick and most don't have extra money to spend on doctor visits unless it's truly an emergency.

[Kimber Scott]

22. Wow. I got a URI my third day in basic. I didn't know it was some kind

of epidemic. I had the vaccine, though. Maybe, that's why it didn't kill me?

[Blue_Tires]

23. very strange

maybe something in the food or water?