Professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction, this handbook was commissioned by the Military Vaccine (MILVAX) Agency, a component of the Army Surgeon General's Office that supports all five Armed Services in optimizing the use of military immunizations to keep troops healthy. Its purpose is to help military leaders at all levels communicate effectively about what vaccines can and cannot do.

1. Vaccines Protect Troops From Infection * 2. Effectively Communicating About Military Vaccines * 3. Understanding Stakeholder Concerns * 4. Overcoming Communication Challenges * 5. Communicating Technical Information About Vaccines * 6. Responding To Difficult Questions * 7. Best Practices In Vaccine Communication * Conclusion * Appendices * A. Resources For Military Vaccine Information * B. Bibliography * C. Endnotes

Why does it continue to be important for the Department of Defense (DoD) to implement military immunization programs? What are the infections that threaten our troops? Can adversaries inflict deadly infections with biological weapons? How would these bioweapons most likely be delivered? Are vaccines the best countermeasure for these threats? How safe and how effective are vaccines? What have we learned from the military's use of vaccines through the centuries? Why should I care about the success of the military's immunization programs? How do I benefit from vaccines? These questions and many more set the stage for communicating about immunizations.

DoD's immunization program is an integral part of DoD's force protection program. One of the biggest challenges for the military immunization program involves maintaining a comprehensive communication effort to provide information to military personnel and their families. Further, this communication program must provide clear information about the specific threats, available vaccines, vaccine safety, medical protocols for administering vaccines, and the policies for managing and administering the program. Other challenges include the disagreements over biowarfare intelligence, reports of rare but serious reactions after immunizations, and the continuing legal challenges against the immunization programs.

This handbook was developed with these and other challenges in mind. The handbook was commissioned by the Military Vaccine (MILVAX) Agency, a component of the Army Surgeon General's Office that supports all five Armed Services in optimizing the use of military immunizations to keep troops healthy. The purpose for "The Military Immunization Communication Handbook" is to help military leaders communicate effectively about what vaccines can and cannot do. The goal is to provide leaders at all levels—warriors, healthcare providers, medics and corpsmen, logisticians, public affairs officials, and others—with the information, tools, and skills they need to ensure that military service members understand the value of immunization and make good choices about vaccines. The information presented here is based on experience, historical perspective, academic and experiential research, clinical input, conclusions from America's top scientists, and best practices in communicating about tough topics.