Policy on Immunizations

[Guest Knight]

what are the legal requirements concerning immunizations? i.e. can your legally decline immunization when you commission?

[Guest doctidy]

Certain immunizations are required to be ready to mobilize. You cannot decline any of those. You are also "required" to keep yourself healthy. You could probably get in trouble for declining some form of reasonable medical treatment for which you (if you were pilot/aircrew) are now a risk to mission completion or flying safety.

Tom Cruise may have starred in Top Gun, but his Scientology views would have caused him problems at some point in time during his career.

[Toro]

Obviously the docs would have more info, but the only immunization I ever heard of being an issue was Anthrax. Specifically, when AF Doctor was court martialed for refusing to by immunized.

[Guest Knight]

Update: Spoke with a Public health officer, she told me that the anthrax program has been made voluntary by congress.

[Herk Driver]

Originally posted by Knight:

Update: Spoke with a Public health officer, she told me that the anthrax program has been made voluntary by congress.

Last I heard when I left Base X about 15 months ago, the anthrax program is on a voluntary basis due to a court ruling and an injunction in place against mandatory anthrax. This is due to the age old discussion about informed consent and whether anthrax was tested properly, for its current use, by the FDA before licensing.

OK, so we've all been guinea pigs for the last how many years. I've all six shots and the booster with no side effects. Has anyone on this board had a medical anthrax induced problem?

I wasn't so enthusiastic about getting smallpox before the war either, but I'd rather have it as a vaccination than get the real deal.