STATEMENT BY JON
IRELAN
TO
GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE
HEARING ON
ANTHRAX VACCINE IMMUNIZATION PROGRAM – WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?
OCTOBER 3,
2000
My name is Jon Irelan.
I am Regular Army Officer assigned to Fort Lewis,
Washington with a duty location in Tigard, Oregon.
I am serving as an adviser to Oregon’s Enhanced
Infantry Brigade. I am here today to tell you that I have suffered a severe autoimmune
reaction to the Anthrax vaccine.
I have returned to Oregon advisory duties after just
completing a remote, one-year unaccompanied tour to the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. My health problems
began while I was stationed in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia after having taken the vaccine.
I arrived in Saudi Arabia on 8 May 1999. My duty location was in Dhahran/Dammam/ Al Khobar
area near the Persian Gulf as a member of a three man advisory detachment. When I arrived, I was in excellent physical
condition and weighed approximately 175 pounds. I
had taken the first three Anthrax shots at Madigan Army Medical Center (Fort Lewis,
Washington) before I deployed. However, on 3
October 1999, when I was in Saudi Arabia, I received my fourth Anthrax vaccination (Attach A). By
the morning of 4 October, I was sick and started to
develop the following symptoms: loss of facial hair, shrunken testicles (to peanut size),
rapid weight gain (mainly in the form of subcutaneous fat), mood swings, severe groin
pain, a substantial of muscular strength and complete loss of libido.
On 4 November I was able to visit our Joint Aid Station in
Riyadh. I walked into the clinic and
asked the Physicians Assistant to check me out. He
immediately called in the flight surgeon who examined me and diagnosed me as having
hypogonadism and wrote a referral to Urology, and ordered an MRI (Attach A). I was sent back out to Dhahran to seek
medical attention at a contracted Saudi facility.
At the Saudi facility, the urologist immediately sent me
over to their endocrinologist since he found no signs
of injury to my testicles. The
endocrinologist ordered blood tests to look for indications of brain tumors. Blood tests
returned within normal range except in the testosterone area. The endocrinologist started me on heavy
doses of oral testosterone. My symptoms
quickly vanished. However, both the
endocrinologist and I had expected that I would be able to drop down to a lower
maintenance dose and eventually no-testosterone at all.
We were both wrong. As I would later
learn, my testicles were dying.
Several weeks later, while home in the States over
Christmas with my wife and two children, I paid a visit
to my civilian doctor. I wanted to update him
on what was going on with me. Both he and my
wife’s uncle (a radiologist) were very concerned that the symptoms returned, with a
vengeance, at each attempt to reduce my dosage. My doctor asked me to have another MRI to make
certain that something had not been over-looked the first time. Back in Saudi Arabia, I had another MRI and a
retinal scan in March 2000. Both tests came
up negative for brain tumor. About this time,
a new flight surgeon examined me when he visited our remote area. He shared my concern over my increasing need for
testosterone and requested that the endocrinologist consider returning my dosage back to
the original high daily dosage rate since my beard was again thinning and my libido was
dead. The Saudi endocrinologist readily
agreed and again returned me to the maximum daily dosage.
On 1 May 2000,
while I was in Riyadh to out-process, the flight surgeon was reviewing my records to
ensure that they were complete for my return to the States and reentry back into the Army
Medical system. It was during this meeting
that the connection to the Anthrax vaccine was raised by the flight surgeon when he
reviewed my shot records. The flight surgeon
specifically said that I should never take another Anthrax shot. He directed me to report to a tenant Air Force
Medical Company to file a Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) report using
their terminal (Attach B). However, when I
arrived at the medical company, an Air Force Sergeant got very excited, told me to stay
put, and he ran from the room. Moments later,
an Air Force doctor came in; grabbed my records, read the referring flight surgeon’s
note and then promptly bent-back the top sheet in my medical records and wrote that he did
not believe that there was any connection between my unexplained or "idiopathic"
hypogonadism and the Anthrax vaccine, recommended that I first see an urologist and sent
me on my way (Attach C). He never even spoke
to me nor did he examine me. Had he bothered
to read my file, he would have seen that I had been under medical care for this problem
for nearly six months. The referring flight
surgeon (only a Major himself) was not able to get the report filed.
Later that afternoon, at the close of my exit briefing to
my general, I told him that he needed to be aware of
the incident at the Medical Company. He
became angry himself and asked what he could do to help.
He said he was going to personally call the commander at Madigan Army Medical
Center to make sure I received care. I told
him that I was going to ask the Joint Aid Station to set up referrals at Madigan Army
Medical Center for my return to the U.S. The next day, I returned to Dhahran to spend my
remaining few days in the kingdom introducing my
replacement to my Saudi counterparts. I had
two referrals in my hand (for urology and endocrinology).
I only had an appointment time for urology. I
returned to the U.S. on 7 May 2000.
I traveled from my remote duty location in Oregon to Ft.
Lewis, WA for in-processing on 22 May 2000. I
had my urology appointment on the afternoon of the following
day. My plan was to stay the night and
take care of medical issues the 23rd of May before driving
back to Oregon. Since I did not have an
appointment for endocrinology, only a referral, I drove to Madigan Army Medical Center to
see if they might be able to squeeze me in. As I topped the escalator, in the Medical Mall, a
voice called my name. The receptionist came
out from behind the her desk and said to me, "We’ve been looking all over for
you. Sir, you
need to know that the Surgeon General was just here talking about you."
Not quite grasping the significance of her statement, I
jokingly replied, "So the fix is in, ha?" She
did not laugh but raised her eyebrows. She
instead asked for my medical records and said that I should
return at 8:00 am the next morning (23 May 2000). The
following morning I reported as directed. A
nervous endocrinologist gave me a cursory examination. His
primary attention appeared to be focused upon discrediting the first-hand observations of
the two flight surgeons and the endocrinologist who had
treated me in Saudi Arabia. He said he could
not, of course, tell if I really had those symptoms
since I was already being treated for them. I
told him that I never diagnosed anything. I simply stood there and real doctors did the
diagnosing. He mumbled to himself about what a hot political topic this was. The exam also noted such germane issues as my lack
of interest in seeking counseling to quit smoking
cigars and the occasional cigarette. He
ordered no tests and I must admit, I was happy to leave
his company. As I was preparing to leave, the
doctor came out into the lobby and gave me a copy of his write-up (Attach D). He then told me that he knew that I was going to
urology next and that he would defer to their judgment as to whether I would continue to
receive testosterone or whether I would resume the Anthrax injections. After a quick lunch, I returned for my urology
appointment. I was prepared for more of
the same treatment.
I was seen by
a young urologist. He gave me a thorough
examination. He asked pertinent questions
as he studied my file. As
he sat at his desk, with his back to me, he started shaking his head. He turned and said, "Sir, I apologize. You must be extremely frustrated by the care you
have received."
Still the naive Infantryman, I thought he was
referring to the half-hearted examination I had received at endocrinology hours before. I told
him it was OK. I was not expecting much more. The urologist then excused himself and returned
with the chief of the urology department. The
chief performed his own examination. He said
to the other doctor, words to the effect "Screw them, I’m treating him!" He said that I was now his patient. He then told me that I had Primary
Testicular Failure and would have to take testosterone for the rest of my life. He said that "something" had caused my
body to attack itself and we may never know why.
I didn’t press him. This doctor
was putting himself in harm's way just to treat me.
He apologized for now having to put me through two weeks of no testosterone so that
he could "washout" the foreign made medication before starting me on a U.S. made
product.
The next two weeks were bad. I lost my beard, suffered terrible chills, hot
flashes, muscular weakness, bed-sweats, mood swings and
groin pain. Occasionally, ringing ears and blurred vision.
Mercifully, on 12 June 2000, I returned to urology submitted to another blood draw
for testosterone baseline after a short two-week period.
Then I demonstrated to the nurse’s satisfaction that I could give myself my
own deep-muscular injections of testosterone. I
started to feel "normal" again several days later.
I returned to my civilian physician several days
later. He is still my primary care provider
here in Oregon. He read through my entire
medical file and got very upset. He told me
that competent medical care could likely have saved my testicles. He said that suspecting Anthrax as a source of
autoimmune reaction, to a Saudi doctor, would be like someone walking into a local doctor’s
office with a rare tropical disease; that doctor is not likely to ever make the
connection. When my doctor telephoned some
other colleagues, he became concerned that whatever was attacking my testicles could still
be attacking something else. They were also
puzzled by the absence of other tests that might help to identify the cause of my problem. He was puzzled why I had never been referred to an
immunologist. As a former Army physician
himself, he wondered why I was not sent to the servicing Army Hospital in Germany aboard
the scheduled medical rotator flight at the first diagnosis of potential brain tumor.
I contacted Dr. Meryl Nass, MD with my doctor’s
concerns and asked her if she was aware of others possessing
similar symptoms. She immediately replied
saying that she was aware of others with my symptoms and agreed that my physician was
correct in his concern about the continued attack on my body. My doctor was totally convinced that I must seek
private testing and evaluation at a top civilian medical facility.
I called the VAERS Hotline. There has never been a report filed on my
behalf.
Since then, I
have sought assistance at a private medical facility.
The attending endocrinologist said that I am not exhibiting any other symptoms or
signs of autoimmune attack at this time.
I sought
assistance through Representative Jack Metcalf’s office on 22 July 2000. Congressman Metcalf’s office has been assured
that a VAERS report will be submitted concerning my own suspected reaction to the Anthrax
Vaccine.
I
continue to serve in my capacity as an active duty advisor.
My retirement date from active duty is 1 June 2001.
I am continuing to receive testosterone injections at a rate of once every 12 days
or as symptoms start to return. I believe
that I will have to take these shots for the rest of my life.
Members of Congress, I appear before you today to
tell you that I would willingly lay my life down for the United States of America. I feel that certain members of the Department of
Defense have breached the trust that is supposed to exist between soldiers and our
leaders. No one needs to tell me that
military service is a dangerous occupation and that there are risks associated with that
service. But what I wish
someone would explain, is why certain civilian and
uniformed members of the Department of Defense have been permitted to inflict this
unproven investigational drug on my fellow soldiers and why they have been permitted to
perpetrate the deceptions and half-truths that surrounds this program.
I and my fellow service members, who have been
sickened by the Anthrax vaccine, come to you, our elected representatives, for help.
Please, do not abandon us.