A few weeks ago, the director of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), in Nes Tziona, Prof. Avigdor Shafferman, currently on sabbatical overseas, had a home visit. Sharp differences of opinion immediately cropped up between him and senior figures in the defense establishment. Military officials said that in the wake of requests by the test subjects and their parents, the defense establishment was compelled to reveal the exact makeup of the Israeli vaccine, which until then was classified as top-secret. Shafferman, though, said he didn't understand what all the fuss was about, because the information was never classified to begin with.

Shafferman is a world expert on anthrax vaccines. He conducted the study and the experiment in the IDF and also developed the Israeli vaccine. After receiving approval for a sabbatical in the U.S. to perform research, it became known that he is also doing scientific consulting for a U.S.-Canadian company, PharmAthene, which develops anthrax vaccines. Haaretz correspondent Yossi Melman, who has reported on this recently, noted that the case was reviewed by both the Defense Ministry and the Civil Service Commission. Now, Melman reports, the state comptroller is also getting involved.

Despite the fact that PharmAthene lists Shafferman on its Web site as a member of its scientific advisory board, it may be difficult to prove a conflict of interest or, more accurately, leakage of information from Israel to the U.S., because the sabbatical was approved at the highest levels. Haaretz has also learned that the area of research approved for the sabbatical is unrelated to anthrax. At the same time, it strains credulity to think he was invited to serve as an adviser to the company that recently bought Nexia Biotechnologies (the firm closed down by the FDA for manufacturing unauthorized vaccines) for reasons unconnected to his expertise in this sphere.

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In any event, the alleged conflict of interest that has been investigated stands apart from Shafferman's bizarre statement, "The entire matter was unclassified from the outset." It is not by chance that this statement outraged Shafferman's superiors. If the composition of the vaccine and the dosages to be administered were not secret, why take the trouble to conceal them from the soldiers? Some of his superiors wonder whether representing the vaccine's composition as unclassified will serve Shafferman when he returns from the sabbatical. Then, he will be asked to report in detail about whether he transmitted any of the knowledge developed in Israel to the company he advised.

In 2001, scientific journals, followed by the Israeli press, reported on a new Israeli vaccine for anthrax. It was said to be essentially different from the previous American types and would be administered in one injection rather than a series of six. It was also noted that it had been tested only on guinea pigs.

What is this vaccine, which was tested successfully? If the components and dosages are not classified, as Shafferman maintains, why does the institute he heads not publish the information for the new vaccine? And if it is the same vaccine, why was it reported to have been tested only on guinea pigs?

This last detail is particularly puzzling in light of the fact that a year later, the Israeli press reported that soldiers had been vaccinated against anthrax in a test that had proved successful, and now, after the chief medical officer informed the vaccinees of the exact makeup of each injection, it is known that those who received the Israeli vaccine did in fact need fewer injections than those who were given the American vaccine.