New anthrax treatment possible

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — If anthrax strikes another American, the government may offer patients an experimental treatment: a protective protein culled from the blood of soldiers who received the anthrax vaccine.

This immune globulin is being added to the nation’s bioterrorism treatment stockpile, a scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.

IG treatment for anthrax would be experimental and require the consent of the Food and Drug Administration, cautioned CDC anthrax expert Dr. Bradley Perkins. But the therapy has worked with other diseases and discussions with FDA are far enough along that "we could rush this through" if anyone else comes down with anthrax and needs it, he said.

IG wouldn’t replace antibiotics as treatment for anthrax. But antibiotics kill only the anthrax bacteria, not the cell-killing toxin those bacteria churn out in people’s blood. The hope is that IG would neutralize the toxin, Perkins said.

New anthrax treatments took on urgency with this fall’s attacks-by-mail, which caused 18 confirmed cases of infection. Five people have died, and the culprit has not been found.

Perkins’ comments about IG came at a scientific meeting to evaluate a separate issue: a new CDC study of pre-exposure anthrax vaccination that aims to prove whether fewer doses given in a different way would be as effective and less uncomfortable than today’s method.

The Pentagon hopes to inoculate millions of troops against an anthrax attack, and already has vaccinated 500,000.

The vaccine has caused controversy as some soldiers complained the shots could be linked to such long-term disorders as chronic fatigue.

For the new inoculation study, the CDC plans this month to begin recruiting 1,500 civilians to test whether as few as three shots and an every-three-years booster would work.