If anyone watched ABC news the other night, they had a special Nightline edition that dealt w/ this topic. From what the panelists were saying, the anthrax vaccine has only been approved by the FDA for the military. ANd when asked if it was going to be made available for civilians, well let's just say that we (civilians) are pretty much SOL! (that's "s*** outta luck"). They said that they give the vaccine to all military persons first, then it can be made available to others. However, after vaccinating the entire military, they said that there's hardly going to be enough if a MAJOR outbreak happens. I forget the exact number of peeps that they could accomodate for, but i remember it not being enough, to say, vaccinate everyone in the US.
The anthrax shot is also a series of 6 shots (ouch!). So it's not like you get one and you're all good. Also, from what i learned on that show, you can't have any symptoms from anthrax in order to receive the vaccine. You can't even receive the antibiotics that help it if you are showing the symptoms. So this is horrible b/c you have to catch this thing QUICK in order to get treatment. And it made me mad b/c once you get those symptoms, you are again SOL! They haven't made anything to help those who have shown symptoms. I believe they try to help you but they way they put it, it's pretty much useless.
I was reading in SELF magazine about this as well. It was an article about 3 women in the military that had some pretty horrible adverse effects to the vaccine. These cases were in '99. Hopefully, by now, they've knocked those effects out. But from the article, it was like, on one hand, you can get the vaccine and possibly get sick. Or you can go w/out and get sick. of course, getting the vaccine (if you can) is better, but it sucks that the side effects can be harsh as well.
Anyway, that's all i know about anthrax. just thought I'd share. Go to
ABC News for more info about the show they had on this. The show even had a fictional scenario about what could happen if an anthrax breakout occurred. If you don't want to be scared, don't go there! It's scary about the possibility fo this happening.