Military members' perception of safety, effectiveness, and ethics of the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP) for the period 1998--2000

This descriptive, quantitative study was performed to investigate the effects of ethics, safety, and effectiveness on overall perception of armed forces members' regarding the Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP). The AVIP is a mandatory vaccine program, which is a six step sequence including an annual booster (Nass, 2002). Military readiness of units is contingent upon vaccination of personnel as is essential to military readiness (Claypool, 1999). The rate of dissatisfaction has caused false rumors, low morale, and mistrust, in addition to affecting mission readiness. The instrument used to gather information was a self-administered Likert Survey mailed using a random sample of 300 active duty military throughout military bases in the Caribbean area. The Statistical Program for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 13.0 was used to compute and analyze descriptive statistics and correlation between variables. Correlation indicated strongly disagree - disagree correlation between independent variables of ethics, safety, and effectiveness and the dependent variable overall perception with the AVIP. The responses indicate that military members fear reprisal for refusing the anthrax vaccine and if given a choice, responses indicate that military members would not receive the anthrax vaccine voluntarily.; The findings of this research study indicate that ethics, safety, and effectiveness have statistically significant effects on overall perception with the AVIP. Thus, efforts toward the goal of mission readiness should focus on improving the program regarding ethics, safety, and effectiveness. This may reduce rumor bias and increase morale among troops. Since 2000, events have changed and will continue to change.