NANCY RUGO

BEFORE THE GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE

HEARING ON “ANTHRAX VACCINATION IMMUNIZATION PROGRAM – WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED”?

OCTOBER 3, 2000

11:00 A.M., 2157 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING

 

Good morning, Mr. Chairman, my name is Nancy Rugo and I am the sister of Sgt. Sandra L. Larson – today, I am here on her behalf as she passed away June 14, 2000 at the age of 32.

During the illness before her death, she made it clear to me to do whatever I can on her behalf if, as she said, “something were to happen.”  She frantically began researching the causes of her condition and started to suspect vaccine connection.  As her conditioned worsened, she communicated some of her discoveries and she told me emphatically, “Nancy, I mean it.  Don’t let this go.”  Obviously, something happened which is why I am here today.  As she requested, I am not going to let this go. 

I would like to inform you about my relationship with her, my knowledge of her relationship with the military and most of all the events which I believe led to her death.  Sandra and I grew up in a military atmosphere, as our father was in the Army himself, in fact she was born while my father was away in the Vietnam War.  Our family moved fairly frequently, living in Europe and the states during his 19-years of service.  We grew up to depend on each other, we were more than sisters in our youth, we were best friends.  As we matured and grew more independent we always remained dependent upon each other for comfort, advice and most of all we drew from each other strengths and a great motivation in our family and work lives.  We use to joke that someday I would be a judge and she would be a 911 Medic or some other extreme, but adventurous, career.  She had a great sense of humor, yet she was a strong-willed individual who could set goals and go all out to meet them.

Sandra married at the age of 16 to a military man, Martin Larson.  They met in Tacoma, Washington near the Ft. Lewis military base and as he had orders to move to Panama for duty they made the decision to marry so that she could be with him.  In December of 1985 she had her first child, a girl, Megan Marie.  Megan is 14 years old today, living with her father in Michigan.

In August of 1995; she was living with me at my home in Spokane, Washington.  She was at a point in her life, at the age of 27 years, where she was looking for direction and purpose.  She was contemplating going back to school or work.  In reviewing advertisements about how great it would be to join the military and the prospect of receiving a college education, she decided this was for her.  She chose the Army, just like our dad, enlisting at a local office in Spokane.  She was excited at the prospect of employment and college in return for her service.  Sandra was a bit scared about leaving home and weighed the consequences of being away from her family versus the goal of accomplishing a great career with the military.  She felt she had made the right choice by enlisting and began her military career in Ft. Campbell Kentucky after completion of her basic training.  She immediately enjoyed the military and set her mind on attaining her future college education with hopes of pursuing an education in the medical field. 

During her duty in Ft. Campbell in February of 1997, Sandra gave birth to another girl, McKenzie Marie.  I will never forget the day she called me with the news of her daughter and having a strange feeling overcome me that I just knew that someday I would be raising this little girl.  I am.  McKenzie lived with me during her mothers tour duty in South Korea and this is where I begin the events to share with you that I believe led to the last days of her life.

It was in the month of April 1998 when Sandra and her 15-month old daughter, McKenzie, were back in Spokane with me as she was preparing for a one-year tour duty in Camp Stanley, South Korea.

She began her 18-month Anthrax program that September 1998 at Camp Stanley. She received her first 4 of 6 shots during this stay in Korea and all four vaccines were all from Lot 17 (see attachment). 

In January of 1999 Sandra was granted a 2 week leave and came back to Spokane to visit with me and her daughter.  I immediately noticed changes in her personality – mainly noting she seemed quite exhausted.  She shared with me how tired she was; assuming her condition was related to her work duties and the exercise programs she had undergone. I remember coming home from work and she would be fast asleep in bed, and I thought she just needed to catch up on her rest.  She had rashes on her arms at that time and told me she thought it was her nerves.  While in Korea, she also developed numbness in her arms and was evaluated for what doctors thought might be carpal tunnel syndrome.

She never objected to the many vaccines she had to take while in Korea.

She went back to Korea, unhappy this time, as she did not like leaving her daughter and was afraid she would not have the energy to pass the PE test she would have to take on her return.

In October of 1999 – Sandra was being relieved of her duties from South Korea and had new orders to relocate to Ft. Riley, Kansas.  She was excited about coming home.  Once in Ft. Riley she was able to obtain a nice home for herself and McKenzie. They called me often and I found them both to be nicely settled.  No one would ever guess that in just 8 months from this date she would no longer be here with us.  If only she knew this was all the time she had to spend with her daughter.  There are a lot of “ifs” in my life now and that is a hard reality for us all.

March 8, 2000– Sandra received her sixth and final Anthrax vaccine, Lot 31.  As we were in constant contact, I was to hear about more rashes she had noticed on her arms and legs, just like the rashes I noticed 15 months ago with previous shots.   She was feeling like she was “a bad mother” because she was again so very tired and had no energy to do things with her little girl.  In fact, she had expressed this with military personnel feeling like she was maybe working too hard.

April 7, 2000 – In just four weeks after that sixth shot, Sandra called me informing me she was not feeling well at all.  This time she mentioned she had additional numerous rashes on her arms and legs that we later found out were because blood capillaries were bursting.  She was extremely tired and was going to go to the military clinic because she started vaginal bleeding that was “pouring” out of her.  Apparently once admitted into the clinic, the first thing the doctors did in assuming she had an infection was to do a simple blood test.  Upon reviewing this one test, they panicked because they found few, if barely any, blood cells to detect.  She had no blood platelets which is what is needed to control bleeding.  She was immediately escorted via military ambulance to the nearest capable emergency room, and that was a 2 ½ hour drive to Kansas City Medical Center, a civilian hospital.

April 10, 2000 – Another call from Sandra, this time she was in ICU at Kansas City Medical Center.  The doctors had been doing many extreme tests (HIV, Hepatitis, etc) on her to try and figure out what was happening and concluded she had Aplastic Anemia.   I was immediately concerned about her and her daughter, who was at the babysitters, and flew to Kansas to do what I could to support her.  When I arrived at the hospital, I seriously thought maybe this was all a fluke and she would be fine as we have no family history of this.

Aplastic Anemia is a rare but serious blood disease that occurs from unexplained failure of the bone marrow to produce blood cells.  Her case was rather extreme as the symptoms she had were sudden.  This was not a gradual case of Aplastic Anemia, she went from a healthy woman just 4 weeks prior to having no bone marrow, platelets and a extremely low count of red and white blood cells.  It was as if there was something in her that was killing her immune system, shutting her down.  The doctors could not find a cause and they tested her for everything they possibly could have, so they diagnosed her case as “Idiopathic Aplastic Anemia.”

I stayed close to the hospital for two weeks, waiting for the day when all this would stop and she could go home, but things only kept getting worse.  The military granted her what is called a “compassionate leave” to Ft. Lewis, Washington.  I planned on leaving Kansas for Spokane the same time as her transfer but she developed an allergic reaction to one of the most relied upon therapies next to a bone marrow transplant.  She would have to stay another week.  I stayed long enough for the hospital to at least type me for a possible bone marrow donor.  Unfortunately, my sister did not have any bone marrow left in her own body to be typed herself.  It was hopeful that a horse serum treatment would cause her body to produce enough bone marrow for them to type, this is what she was allergic to and it never worked. 

On April 26, 2000, I returned home to Spokane with McKenzie.  I kept in contact with my sister on a day to day basis.  It was at this point where infections started to kick in, which is the worse thing a Aplastic Anemia patient could have happen.  Each of us has white blood cells to fight off infection, but she had none and was to rely on blood transfusions every other day just to keep her going.

May 2, 2000 – Sandra was medically prepared to fly to Ft. Lewis where she would stay at Madigan Army Medical Center.  The flight did not go well, and was about the worse thing to happen in her circumstance.  The military medic vac plane’s cockpit had caught on fire when en route.  They had to do an emergency landing at Travis Air Force Base in California.  I do not understand how this base became the closet landing as you would assume the route would have had a direction towards Seattle, not California. This base was not equipped to handle her condition and she had to prolong waiting for a much needed blood transfusion.  Normally would have one in 2 days but she had to wait 4 days.  Because of this, she developed a lung infection called Asperiollous.  A normal person such as you and I would have a hard enough time fighting this, but as she did not have her own cells to fight with, this was the worse case scenario for her.  They were able to fly her to Ft. Lewis in which she was provided the adequate medical care.

May 20, 2000 – Received a phone call from the ICU physician.  I was told I needed to come visit her right away as they did not think she would live through the weekend.  I called my parents in Montana and we all drove to Tacoma to be with her.  We were told on our arrival that she would not make it through this.  They would do all they could to keep fighting, but there was not a chance.  The hospital had even started to transplant white donated blood cells directly into her lungs which is an extreme, but hopeful, therapy.  My sister was so very ill, she was on a ventilator and her whole body looked as if  they had inflated her.  She was so scared yet in total denial about leaving, which made it difficult for me to talk to her about her last wishes.  She was very angry at everyone, kept saying she was going to get better and had planned on living in Spokane so she could be near me with her daughter.  

June 2, 2000 – The VA came to visit with the family while we were at the hospital and said they were in the process to medically retire her as quickly as possible for the benefit of her two girls.  They were successful and a great team of help for me at that time.  She was granted 130% medically retired benefit.

June 12, 2000 – Sandra went into a coma and I had to return again as I had to make a decision about pulling her off of life support.  I was terrified.  On June 13, 2000 I arrived at the hospital alone, as I did not want to see anyone but her.  She was so far gone already, I felt awful for having her live like this.  I sat down with a team of eight doctors to discuss pulling her off and told them I would like to pull her off but I would first like to have her oldest daughter Megan to fly from Michigan as she wanted to say goodbye to her mother while she was still living.  This was so stressful, it seemed like everything with flying her here quickly went wrong, there were flight delays and weather problems, it was almost as if Sandra was trying to avoid having Megan see her like that.  By the time Megan’s plane arrived in Tacoma, it was after 2 am in the morning on the 14^th of June, her mother had already left us two hours prior.  Megan was happy to see me and thankful to me for waiting for her, as she knew we were keeping her mother alive for her goodbye.  I waited until we got outside the airport to tell Megan that her mother had already left us, her heart had given up.  This was so difficult.  I called the hospital and told them to keep her in the room and try to clean her up for her daughter’s visit, as she insisted on seeing her regardless.

 

SUMMARY

Sandra Larson joined the military in 1995.  Was transferred to South Korea in 1998, where she began the 18-month Vaccine Program; having four (4) of six (6) shots (lot 17) while stationed in South Korea.  In October of 1999, having completed her tour duty was then transferred to Ft. Riley, Kansas where she completed her final two vaccines, from lots 44 in September of 1999 and lot 31 in March of 2000.  April 7, 2000, just four weeks after being injected from her sixth shot, she was admitted into the hospital with a serious rare blood disease, Aplastic Anemia, which could be considered an autoimmune disease.  June 14, 2000, twelve weeks after receiving her sixth shot she had deceased.

Attachments

      Vaccine Record

      Physician Evaluation Board Report (June 1, 2000) (Available upon Request)

  Two alarming questions I would like an answer to is why, after already showing signs and symptoms after her third shot, was she to partake in more shots?  and was she or was she not injected with the experimental Squalene?

Why, when transferring such a seriously ill person, did the military fly the route towards California instead of to Washington State?

In my dealings with the military I was and still am not the least bit satisfied.  I have hit a lot of brick walls, have a lot of un-returned  phone calls and have received very poor assistance with her causality assistance.  The military granted me a Casualty Assistance Officer to work with me on very important paperwork for the girls’ benefit.  Unfortunately, for me, this person never ever has worked with causality assistance before, in fact we had to go over the instructional booklet together rather blindly.  This person was a reserve enlistment officer, an office worker.  It turned out that I ended up trying my best to do the appropriate paperwork myself, only to have much of it done wrong, taking a lot of time and more red tape.  As far as I know, her husband has yet to receive a gratuity check, which he was suppose to receive during the first week of her death, it has now been 12 weeks.  We were told the check was on its way via Fed-Ex in June.  Then were told they were waiting for paperwork from us, which we already submitted.  Actually, my dealings with the military are quite lengthy and if someone here would like details, please feel free to assist me.

My dealings with the VA has been more than great.  These people made things easy for me, offering to help where they can and actually accomplishing matters expeditiously.