Israeli army under fire for unethical anthrax testing program
Troops were given an experimental vaccine but could not discuss the matter with their military physicians
And you though the US Army had problems with its anthrax program. A damning report on Israeli television this week revealed that the government in 2000 had tricked hundreds of elite soldiers into taking part in a program known as Omer 2 to test an experimental anthrax vaccine — and then refused to help them when adverse symptoms occured. Under the study, half the soldiers were provided an American vaccine (probably Emergent BioSolution’s Biothrax) and the other half an Israeli-developed vaccine. “They said it was very advanced,” recalled one soldier.
So convinced, soldiers who later developed skin lesions and pneumonia did not at first connect their symptoms to the shots — and when they finally did ask those in charge of the program, they were told emphatically that no connection exists. Worst of all, because not even the troops’s commanding officers knew of the program, they could not tell even their military physicians about the issue, meaning that the symptoms went unresolved for months. One soldier found himself in the hospital. According to YNET, he
“called the unit begging to be told what he had been given
