Here Comes the Anthrax Again

Has the Department of Defense finally made up their minds on this:

First it was required, then it was optional, and now it’s required again — for some.

The Defense Department has made anthrax vaccinations mandatory for U.S. troops and emergency-essential DOD civilians and contractors serving in the U.S. Central Command Area of Responsibility and on the Korean peninsula for 15 days or more, a top Defense health official said Monday.

Currently, the Defense Department is not considering expanding the mandatory vaccination program to troops outside those areas, said Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense of health affairs.

Several hundred thousand U.S. troops are expected to receive the vaccine under the mandatory program, which is expected to resume within the next 30 to 60 days, Winkenwerder told reporters on Monday.

I started taking anthrax injections in 2000 when I went to Korea and I received up to four out of the six required shots before the DOD ran out of vaccine. So I eventually went back to the states and there the program restarted again before my division deployed to Kuwait to fight in Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. I had to restart from shot number one again due to the time in between my first injections in Korea. Once again I made it up to four shots again when the court ruling came out that the DOD could not give anthrax shots anymore. So here I am again looking at having to take anthrax shots again in the future and I will probably have to start all over again from shot number one.

On a positive note I have had eight anthrax injections total and still no ill effects, yet. I hope I didn’t just jinx myself.