The defense secretary described the vaccine requirement, which he lifted in April, as an “absurd, overreaching” mandate.
A major flu outbreak has sickened nearly 160 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas less than two months after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that U.S. troops would no longer be required to be vaccinated for the flu, defense officials said.
The outbreak at the base in San Antonio raced through an Air Force Basic Military Training wing, where new recruits sleep on bunk beds in open bays and share meals at large communal tables.
A trainee in his sixth week of basic training died after falling ill on Friday and being taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, the Air Force said in a news release. It was not immediately clear whether the death of the trainee, Keon McDaniel, was related to the flu outbreak.
Bah this is just scare mongering. The flu comes every year, you get sick for two weeks or so and are fine for the rest of the year. People with decent immune systems and botany knoedge do better. People dependent on drugs and who screw their immune systems up with vaccines do worse.