U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, granting a request by the Bush administration, issued a stay of his Dec. 22 order prohibiting mandatory anthrax inoculations until a trial can be held on a lawsuit filed by six unidentified troops and Pentagon civilian workers who challenged the policy.

A court clerk said the judge issued the stay of that order, exempting only the six plaintiffs in the case.

Sullivan, in his Dec. 22 ruling, had accepted the plaintiffs' contention that the vaccine was an experimental drug being employed for an unapproved use: protecting against potentially deadly exposure to airborne anthrax spores as well as less hazardous exposure through the skin.

The judge wrote at the time that without informed consent or a presidential order, the Pentagon cannot require that troops "serve as guinea pigs for experimental drugs."

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Dec. 30 declared that the vaccine was safe for use in protecting U.S. troops against inhaled exposure to anthrax. That prompted the Bush administration to file a motion asking the court to lift the ban on anthrax vaccines in light of the FDA ruling.