Today I recieved my first of a series of anthrax vaccines. It's been 5 hours since it was administered, and I have a headache and slight fever. Is this a normal reaction or could it be signs of an allergy or something possibly unrelated?
Dunno, but I'd like to give my .02 cents on the subject...
Honestly, I'm dreading being a guinea pig myself for a "medicine" that only protects against cutaneous anthrax (have there been any reported cases where the innoculation saved somebody's life? Or was necessary to begin with?). There are just too many people who have reported significant side effects to simply ignore. However, the FDA has deemed the vaccinations to be "safe and effective".
I seem to remember the FDA saying the same thing about another medication in the past called Vioxx (we all know what happened there...)
Originally posted by HamiltonUSNR: Today I recieved my first of a series of anthrax vaccines. It's been 5 hours since it was administered, and I have a headache and slight fever. Is this a normal reaction or could it be signs of an allergy or something possibly unrelated?
A headache and slight fever are NOT signs of an allergic reaction. If your throat was swelling, you were wheezing, it was getting harder to breathe, you were breaking out in hives and so forth...then that is an allergic reaction...NOT a headache.
This is a vaccine, meaning you are taking some of the devil right into your system for your body to build immunity. Just like the flu shot, people can and do get some symptoms.
Originally posted by mkeehn0101: Dunno, but I'd like to give my .02 cents on the subject...
Honestly, I'm dreading being a guinea pig myself for a "medicine" that only protects against cutaneous anthrax (have there been any reported cases where the innoculation saved somebody's life? Or was necessary to begin with?). There are just too many people who have reported significant side effects to simply ignore. However, the FDA has deemed the vaccinations to be "safe and effective".
I seem to remember the FDA saying the same thing about another medication in the past called Vioxx (we all know what happened there...)
Off my soapbox now.
You have a couple of options in this;
Refusing the shot, and risk Captains Mast.
Take the shot like everyone else has in the military, with no ill effects. I would really be interested to see a study linking the evils of the Anthrax innoculation. To compare it to Vioxx is not even feasible.
The Anthrax shot sucks, no question about it. It seems you would be causing more trouble by refusing to get it, than just sucking it up and getting the shot.
I felt a burning sensation in my arm immediately after I got mine, which subsided after an hour or so. In the week prior to getting the shots, there was a small group of guys onboard our ship (out of our roughly 360 complement) that were very opposed to it, and were going to take any punishment to refuse the shot. When the day finally arrived, only one guy still refused, and he was subsequently disciplined. I don't remember what ever happened to him.
