Illnesses after Israeli anthrax test

If you play with fire, expect to get burned...

Some Israeli soldiers have reportedly developed tumours and suffered infections after being used in tests by the Israeli military to develop an anthrax vaccine.

The report televised on Israel's Channel 2 on Monday said that several of the 700 soldiers who volunteered to test the vaccine have since suffered medical problems.

Giora Martinovich, the former chief medical officer for the Israeli military, confirmed that the tests were conducted from 1998 to 2006 and that some of the volunteers had suffered side-effects.

Deadly disease

He told Israel Radio that the vaccine programme had been ordered amid fears of an anthrax attack by Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president, and because foreign-made vaccines were not available.

"It seemed clear that the Iraqis would use it [anthrax] against us," he said.

"It is not possible to buy abroad a large quantity of vaccine, which exists only in the United States or in England.

"Therefore the state of Israel had to develop its own vaccine."

Anthrax is a deadly bacterial disease and its spores can be used in germ warfare to infect victims.

Israel's defence ministry said in a response to the programme that the military had conducted "research in the context of protecting the state of Israel's populace against a strategic threat".

The United States has long required that its troops serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and South Korea be vaccinated against anthrax.