Your son has started taking the anthrax vaccine because Korea is considered a high-threat area. U.S. Intelligence has determined that potential adversaries in designated high-threat areas either have the capability to use or has expressed a willingness to use anthrax as a potential biological weapon against the United States.
Weaponized anthrax is highly lethal.
The DoD has a safe and effective, FDA approved vaccine to protect our Service Members from the deadly effects of weaponized anthrax. The Secretary of Defense, William Cohen implemented the AVIP in March of 1998. Currently we are in a slowdown in our program due to a shortage of vaccine. This means that only Service Members who are in the high-threat areas for 30 days or more will be administered the anthrax vaccine. Once the Service Member is out of the high-threat area, they will defer the vaccine until the DoD has assured production of the vaccine.