The Food and Drug Administration licensed Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed in 1970, based on a 1950s study of textile mill workers who processed imported goat hair. Each year, several mill workers contracted anthrax, a disease that humans get by touching, breathing or ingesting the pathogen bacillus anthracis from infected animals.

Of the 400 vaccinated workers, three contracted anthrax, and all of them developed cutaneous anthrax, a skin infection that is rarely fatal if treated with antibiotics. The FDA then approved AVA as safe and effective against cutaneous anthrax.

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