Monday, January 13, 2014

More details on the Israeli anthrax vaccine settlement, including acknowledgement of illnesses/ Haaretz

A longer report was published in Haaretz, with an excerpt below: 
... In December 2008, the [Israeli Medical Association] investigative committee published a report, which found grave fault with the way in which soldiers were recruited for the experiment, and the unscrupulous methods for achieving the soldiers’ consent – which included failure to inform them of the risks associated with the experiment.
In 2010, 92 soldiers filed a lawsuit against the government, through attorney Boaz Ben Zur. The lawsuit’s complaint included a statement that the ordeal involved an “experiment on human beings” who did not agree to participate. 
Many participants have developed medical problems in the years subsequent to the experiment. The settlement agreement calls on the government to admit that side effects from the experimental inoculation have been found in some of the participants. These side effects were labeled by the government as “few and far between,” and included – among others – Crohn’s disease, thyroid inflammation, [both of which were strongly correlated with the vaccination in US troops--Nass] allergic dermatitis reactions and temporary kidney failure.
Although the settlement agreement did not force the government to take responsibility for the side effects, it was written that “in some cases, and in light of the specific circumstances of every case, it was determined, based on medical knowledge, that correlation between the aforementioned side effects and receiving the inoculation cannot be denied.”
... A letter for participants and their families from the Victims of Anthrax Experimentation committee read, “After seven years of long, difficult struggle, we won. We set out to combat the IDF’s moral image as a Jewish army; we were not seeking reparations. What we fought for is an IDF that does not experiment on human beings, its soldiers, as if they are lower than lab animals, and then evades responsibility for the consequences. We’ve returned honor to the IDF command, but it’s a shame we had to do so through the courts...”

No comments: