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On 17 January 2017, a short documentary titled Vaccine Syndrome (written and directed by Scott Miller, who has other anti-vaccine films to his credit) saw its world premiere as part of a larger series of anti-vaccine documentaries named Vaccines Revealed which were released over a ten-day period in late January 2017. Vaccine Syndrome makes the claim that over 35,000 Gulf War veterans have died as a result of receiving mandated anthrax vaccinations during the period of time leading up to and during that conflict. Here is the claim and the entirety of its supporting evidence, as presented in the film: Though Vaccine Syndrome cites a specific government research paper from 2008 titled Gulf War Illness and the Health of Gulf War Veterans: Scientific Findings and Recommendations, it is unclear what within the report led the filmmaker to that figure. The cited report focused on Gulf War Syndrome, an enigmatic illness suffered by as many as 32% of Gulf War veterans that, despite its prevalence, remains poorly understood. This is the official government definition of that condition, as stated in the research paper in question: Among the many speculated causes of Gulf War Syndrome, one promoted strongly by anti-vaccine advocates is that the illness is tied to the compulsory vaccination of roughly 150,000 service men and women deployed during the 1991 Gulf War. This article is not about the veracity of a possible link between vaccinations and Gulf War Syndrome, nor it about about any claims related to government malfeasance in performing such vaccinations (which were in some cases administered without informed consent). Instead, this article is strictly an investigation into the allegation that a government document cited by Vaccine Syndrome offers credible evidence documenting that the deaths of 35,000 service members were the direct result of mandated anthrax vaccinations. According to the government report, about 150,000 Gulf War veterans out of about the 700,000 personnel deployed in that conflict are believed to have received one or two anthrax shots, which were most commonly given to troops who were in fixed support locations during the war. This means that if we are to understand the Vaccine Syndrome claim as meaning that 35,000 military veterans who had been administered anthrax vaccinations during the first Gulf War died from them, then the film is arguing that 23.3% of veterans who received such vaccinations are now dead as a direct result — an extraordinarily high death rate mentioned not once in the 454-page document cited by the film. One possible way to arrive at something approaching a figure of more than 35,000 based only on the cited report would be to take the estimate of the total number of servicemembers inoculated (150,000) and assume that this population of individuals experienced a similar rate of Gulf War Syndrome (between 25 and 32 percent, per the report) as the overall population of Gulf War veterans, and then either misinterpret or misrepresent affected by Gulf War Syndrome as killed by Gulf War Syndrome: The above exercise serves as less as an explanation and as more of an illustration into how much of a reach the number of 35,000 is, based upon the evidence provided. Unless there is some other plausible interpretation of the claim that 35,000 soldiers have died due to adverse effects from the anthrax vaccine, we can find no justification for the figure Miller arrived at from information contained in the report he cited. We have reached out to Scott Miller, the filmmaker, for clarification regarding this figure and are awaiting his response.
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