Secret IDF anthrax vaccine trial on soldiers to be investigated
IMA Ethics Bureau will examine whether tests adhered to Helsinki Declaration requirements.
By Yuval AzoulayThe Israel Defense Forces will provide the ethics bureau of the Israeli Medical Association with all the details of secret experimental anthrax vaccine trials it carried out on over 800 soldiers since 1999.
A committee will be established to probe whether the trials adhered to World Medical Association ethical requirements relating to human clinical trials as set out in the Helsinki Declaration.
The IMA probe will comprise specialists in infectious diseases, and members of the Israeli delegation to the Helsinki committee which devised the international standards for clinical trials on humans. Chairman of the IMA Ethics Bureau, Professor Avinoam Reches, said on Sunday that the probe's findings will be made public.
The Israel Medical Corps requested that the IMA investigate the experiments after Channel 2 television's current affairs program, Uvda, revealed earlier this month that dozens of participants still suffered unexplained medical symptoms.
Following the expose, the Defense Ministry and former IDF chief medical officer issued statements saying the experiment had been carried out because Iraq was expected to use spores of the deadly anthrax bacteria to attack Israel.
Israel did not possess sufficient quantities of the vaccine to field such an attack, and was therefore compelled to produce the vaccine rather than importing it.
Years after the receiving the experimental Israeli vaccine, soldiers continued to suffer unexplained skin tumors, severe lung infections, serious migraine headaches, bronchitis and even epilepsy symptoms.
However, the IDF did not take responsibility for their ongoing treatment at civilian medical centers, and they were not allowed to discuss the experiment under any circumstances despite its likely connection to their continuing health problems.
One of the soldiers who took part in the experiment told Uvda "They said that one group would receive the American vaccine, and the other group would receive the experimental Israel vaccine."
"They specifically explained to us that the vaccine is not dangerous and that we were not being injected with the actual virus, not even the dead virus. Instead, they said they would inject us with the altered DNA of the virus. They said it was very advanced," added the soldier.
The Ethics Bureau investigation committee will hear testimonies from Israel Medical Corps staff responsible for carrying out the secret experiments, as well as from soldiers who received the vaccine.
Israeli non-profit group Physicians for Human Rights has requested the soldiers' testimonies as well, in order to pressure the authorities to create an independent probe commission into the medical practices of the IDF and Defense Ministry.
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this is a great weapon to deny railway yards from having their wagons cleaned and utilised. Bomb the 'humps' first, then FAE's to overturn the wagons, then anthrax to scare and slow the repair crews. handy indeed !!!.
Were the Druze, Ethopians and other goy the Israeli vaccine guinea pigs?
They dont want public scrutiny over their science because they dont perform science. They just hide their phoniness behind all that secrecy until a bunch of nobodies have to suffer. Then, they try to cover it up. We're ready to hang you this time. You cant run forever.
The internatinonal 'human rights' NGO's would welcome anything that kills or harms Israeli soldiers.
As I would expect. The US military and IDF don't have differing opinions. They both have continued disregard for civilians as well as their own. How can one justify the secret testing on their own soldiers other than the fact that they have little regard for them. I have yet to hear of top military brass (who make such perposterous decisions) apply any of these tests to themselves. I only know of Canada's great Fred Banting who tested insulin on himself and then made it available to the world for free. That's a hero.
"ISRAEL DID NOT POSSESS SUFFICIENT QUANTITIES OF THE VACCINE TO FIELD SUCH AN ATTACK, AND WAS THEREFORE COMPELLED TO PRODUCE THE VACCINE RATHER THAN IMPORTING IT". If the above quotation is true, would't it have been much easier, faster and safer to import this Anthrax vaccine instead of making our soldiers subject to a - AS LATER PROVEN - highly dangerous experiment ? ? I hope that the Israeli non-profit group Physicians for Human Rights will thoroughly follow up on this particular incident and make sure that there will be NO WHITE-WASHING of this ugly experimental fiasco. Instead of taking naive and insufficiently mature soldiers while instructing them not to talk about the experiment to their parents nor among each other, maybe next time when there arises the need for a similar experiment one should try to convince our members of parliament and ministers to volunteer for it. Might yet turn out to be a good and easier way to replace some of them faster and more honorable.