Thursday 19 March 2009

Barack Obama is now the fourth president facing the scientific and bureaucratic conundrum around the US-created ongoing wartime hazards producing disastrous health complications for soldiers and civilians.

Eighteen years after the six-week first Gulf War, maladies still haunt thousands of US and allied service members as well as estimated hundreds of thousands of Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Afghan civilians. A myriad of scientists and government officials insist it is bewildering to pinpoint whether countless chemical and radiological hazards either killed or sickened hundreds of thousands of US service members, allied soldiers and Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Afghan civilians. Federal health officials have not only denied monetary and health assistance to thousands of veterans, whose illnesses they say cannot be linked to US created wartime hazards, but they have mostly failed to assist the Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Afghan civilian health system.

“Our war (the first Gulf War) was the most toxic as far as exposures ever in history,” said Denise Nichols, a retired US Air Force registered nurse and veterans’ advocate, who herself suffers from wartime illness. “How can parents or the American citizens trust their government or encourage their young to enlist when this history of neglect and denial of gulf war illness is allowed to fester … [the US Department of Veterans Affairs] has betrayed us. [The Department of Defense] has betrayed us. The government for 17 years betrayed the trust we as soldiers, airmen, marines, or sailors had, and our trust must be regained by [incoming President Barack Obama].”

Medical records show Melissa Sterry, 46, a New Haven, Connecticut, resident, who cleaned up radioactive depleted uranium dust in tanks during the Gulf War, has post-traumatic stress, chronic headaches, upper respiratory infections and repeating pneumonia. The former US Army specialist also has three types of irregular heartbeats, muscle fatigue and spasms, joint aches, chronic diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and blood in her urine and stool. More recently, she suffered through a double mastectomy for breast cancer. “I don’t want to be disabled,” Sterry said, reacting to her extended battle with Veterans Affairs (VA). “I want to get off it. I’m telling them, ‘Fix me!”‘

Unemployed since leaving the military, Sterry has, at times, had trouble dressing herself and paying for food and a roof over her head. Today, Sterry is increasingly upset because Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell defunded the first state law nationwide forcing the tracking of sicknesses in Gulf War veterans. It was Sterry who single-handedly lobbied it into being at the Connecticut State Legislature. Federal officials, she said, were totally ineffective in detecting and treating deadly health effects of everlasting radioactive depleted uranium dust spread for hundreds of miles in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan.

Cover Ups of Wartime Hazards’ Connections to Illnesses

On various occasions since 1991, veterans, Congressmen and government entities, including the US General Accountability Office (GAO), have accused federal agencies, committees, Congress and three past presidential administrations of either covering up, obfuscating or ignoring solutions to Gulf War Syndrome. Informed critics found scores of Pentagon and US Department of Veterans Affairs inquiries inadequate or worse. Initially, in the mid 1990s, Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s officials tried to pin some of the blame for continuing illnesses on veterans’ alleged psychiatric stress. That medical composite was ultimately discredited by scientific critics, in part because the war lasted only weeks, and more significantly, because the diagnosis was completely inappropriate for most veterans examined.

So, they were sent to war. They became physically ill. They went to the doctor. But, ultimately, despite being physically ill, physicians were telling them: “Your mind is imagining that you are sick.” Back in 1996, George C. Vaughn, then 34, who said he was exposed to chemical warfare and a host of other war hazards, was given an Army disability for physical ailments that was later rescinded. At the time of his “mental” illness diagnosis, he said, “I feel like I have been stabbed in the back by my country. I feel like I don’t trust the doctors at Walter Reed any more and I don’t trust the whole process.”

Frustration for ailing veterans unable to get federal health assistance has carried on through for thousands taken ill during the present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, Veterans For Common Sense recently said the VA figures show that: “The number of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans receiving treatment at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facilities sky-rocketed from 13,000 to over 400,000 in the last four years.”

As medical claims mount, this month, the VA conceded to a US House of Representatives’ subcommittee that scores of veterans’ medical complaints and supporting documents at the VA offices in Detroit, Michigan, St. Louis, Missouri, Waco, Texas and St. Petersburg, Florida, were shredded before they could be evaluated. The VA inspector general’s inquiry into the destroyed documents is ongoing. Michael Walcoff, a deputy VA under-secretary for benefits, called the actions “clearly unauthorized and inappropriate.”

Meanwhile, little or no professional health assistance is being offered to untold numbers of seriously ill Iraqi, Kuwaiti and Afghan civilians, even as the wars in those countries continue to nauseate and/or kill tens of thousands more. In the first war alone, estimates of Iraqi deaths range from tens of thousands to more than one hundred thousand. In the meantime, during that first Persian Gulf War, untold hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis became afflicted from hazardous exposures or were wounded. Several small US organizations, frustrated by lack of federal support, have struggled to help Iraqi doctors and hospitals care for overwhelming legions of the sick civilians. Yet, former President George H.W. Bush proclaimed the US armed service members were duty bound to protect the Iraqi people.

Two Presidents, Father and Son, Say Iraqi People Are Paramount

“Our role is to help our friends in their own self defense… And let me make it clear that the United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people. Our quarrel is with Iraq’s dictator and with his aggression,” said the senior President Bush, in a speech to Congress on September 11, 1990.

His son, former President George W. Bush, later insisted: “America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children.”

Bush’s promised benefits didn’t bind for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis sick from wartime exposures. Prior to her death from leukemia in September 2004, Nuha Al Radi, an accomplished Iraqi artist and author of the “Baghdad Diaries” wrote: “Everyone seems to be dying of cancer. Every day one hears about another acquaintance or friend of a friend dying. How many more die in hospitals that one does not know? Apparently, over thirty percent of Iraqis have cancer, and there are lots of kids with leukemia.”

Here’s an outsider’s reaction to the state of Iraqis’ health as a consequence of the 18 years of US-Iraq conflicts. “When I visited Auschwitz I was horrified. And when I visited Iraq, I thought to myself, ‘What will we tell the children in fifty years when they ask what we did when the people in Iraq were dying?'” asked Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, according to Citations de personnes eminente.

Last November, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC) created glimmering hope for some war veterans. The committee’s voluminous findings were among the first to pierce some alleged mysteries of chemical hazards causing Gulf War illnesses. But the report, like most all federally funded others, was targeted only to help sick US war veterans and their immediate families.

Dr. Lea Steele, the RAC’s scientific director, said, “We are familiar with the types of information concerning health problems in Iraqi civilians after the Gulf War, and since the current Iraq War, some of which is referenced in the report. There are also reports of health problems among Kuwaitis after the Gulf War. Although not specifically addressed by the RAC, the health consequences of these wars on local civilians are a serious concern. We were disappointed to find that there have been no assessments of which of the many different environmental exposures and other wartime hardships may have caused and/or contributed to the difficult health situation in Iraq.”

Nick Shapiro, a spokesman for President Barrack Obama, said the impacts of Gulf War illnesses are a significant concern. But Shapiro deferred observations on all reporting questions to the VA. Shapiro did not comment on the past failures of federal authorities to assist foreign civilians sickened or killed by wartime illnesses.

Government statistics say 13,194 Gulf War, US military service veterans have died since the January 1991 to February 1991 conflict. Those same figures reveal the average age of service members going to the war was between 30 and 32 years old. Eighteen years later, or today, their average age would be 48 and over. That era and younger is normally too early for death to strike. And, now, one in every four of the 696,842 Gulf War service members is still ill, some terminally, said the VA.

Since contemporaneous US Army air, water or soil tests conducted throughout active battle zones were largely inconclusive, it is difficult to say exactly who was exposed to a given hazard at any particular point in time. But, later, in 2003, preliminary tests by the Uranium Medical Research Center showed that (their collected Iraqi) air, soil and water samples contained “hundreds to thousands of times” the normal levels of radiation (left by depleted uranium munition explosions), according to Countercurrents.org.

“One of the Dirtiest Environmental Conflicts in History”

Clearly, substantial corroboration exists proving that hundreds of thousands of service members were exposed to smoke from the overwhelming oil well fires and constant wind-blown dust, containing multiple hazardous chemicals like nerve gas and radiation from exploding munitions. Gulf War I has been called one of the dirtiest environmental conflicts in history. Adding more risk to those dangers, there is no doubt service members were forced to take risky US drugs and vaccines supposedly aimed at protecting combatants from some of the predictable wartime contaminants.

The indicators of sickening or life-threatening exposures could be and have been reproduced. A multitude of eyewitnesses observed the daily smoke and dust, darkening the air. Many of the 100,000 in the vicinity knew or eventually discovered they were exposed to wartime nerve or mustard gases when the US military blew up Iraqi chemical bunkers in March 1991 near Khamisiyah, Iraq, or when wartime gas alarms sounded. (Yet, servicemen learned much later that their US gas masks and other protective equipment were proven to be inadequate.) And, finally, and undoubtedly, most service members inoculated or ordered to take anti-nerve agent pills and vaccines are themselves eyewitnesses to their adverse reactions to those forced controversial drug regimens. Unfortunately, many US military inoculation records have since mysteriously disappeared, eliminating corroborating evidence.

Despite overwhelming indicators of wartime hazards, “The Presidential Advisory Committee’s (1997) final report concluded that many of the health concerns of Gulf War veterans may never be fully resolved because of a lack of data,” as cited in GAO/NSIAD-97-136. The very same GAO report said: “according to the Department of Defense officials we interviewed, the Persian Gulf War medical records are widely recognized as incomplete and inaccurate in documenting all medical events for service members while deployed to the Persian Gulf.” The report continued: “In researching the Persian Gulf War illnesses, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the (PAC) reported that inaccurate information on the location of service members in the theater presented problems in identifying exposures to various health threats.”

In November, the RAC’s 14-member panel of doctors, veterans and their advocates, like legions of others including the PAC, brushed aside some of the war’s health threats with inconclusive findings. They did call for further inquiry, just like those countless others have since the early 1990s.

Almost immediately, the VA sent the committee’s work on to be evaluated by still another well-known health organization, The Institute of Medicine (IOM). Yet, the IOM has consistently depreciated connections between veterans’ sicknesses and most all of those same deadly wartime hazards. Indeed, the IOM is heavily criticized for inconclusive scientific findings in the RAC report itself.

IOM Did Not Link War’s Hazardous Exposures to Vets’ Illnesses

On January 23, two months after VA Secretary Dr. James B. Peake called for the evaluation, IOM President Dr. Harvey Fineberg answered it. Fineberg said the IOM agrees with the RAC that Gulf War veterans have “multi-symptom illnesses” at higher rates than those veterans not sent to the war. But, he explained, the IOM never linked the constantly sick veterans to specific exposures. That was in part, he said, because of the lack of scientific reliability of such conclusions, particularly the weakness of self-reported veterans’ symptoms and exposures.

The Pentagon, unlike the RAC and many sick veterans and dozens of their advocates, apparently believes in the IOM’s integrity. “There is no question that symptoms in 1990-91 Gulf War veterans are real and are deserving of care and treatment,” said Michael E. Kilpatrick, director of Military Health Systems Strategic Communications. “All studies have shown that Gulf War veterans report nearly twice the rate of all symptoms compared to Service members who did not deploy. However, based on many research studies, IOM concluded that there are no unique symptoms or unique pattern of symptoms in Gulf War veterans.”

However, five years ago, Vanity Fair’s David Rose quoted Kilpatrick as saying that Gulf War veterans are no less healthy than soldiers who were stationed elsewhere. Kilpatrick, said Rose, dismissed a penetrating 2004 GAO Gulf War probe. The GAO then concluded that studies used by federal officials to show Gulf War veterans were no sicker than the veterans of other wars “may not be reliable” and had “inherent limitations.” That GAO report was “just the opinion of a group of individuals,” Kilpatrick told Rose.

Research Advisory Committee Hedges Some of Its Conclusions

Despite what it suggested is the uncertainty of health impacts of some of the other hazardous exposures, the RAC concluded that the most likely causes of thousands of Gulf War Syndrome illnesses were pesticides and the pills supplied the troops to allegedly protect them from warfare nerve gases. Low levels of those gases were fired by Iraqis. Others were released when the US blew up Iraqi chemical warfare storage at the Khamisiyah storage bunkers after the war, despite advance US intelligence of the dangers lurking there. The RAC additionally found that it could not rule out an association between Gulf War illnesses and soldiers’ exposures to those low-level nerve agents, extended exposure to smoke from oil well fires, receipt of large numbers of vaccines and combinations of neurotoxic exposures.

The committee urged more scientific studies for the health impacts of the controversial anthrax vaccine and dangerous depleted munitions dust. Nevertheless, its members discounted some obvious scientific and other evidence, which pointed to the vaccine’s and the dust’s potential to make many of those exposed to them seriously ill. To the detriment of some service members, the report focused almost entirely on hazards causing Gulf War Syndrome and not other battle-time hazards leading to other individual illnesses unrelated to the syndrome.

Days after the RAC’s report was received by the VA, its officials turned the results over to the IOM. Incidentally, Dr. Lynn Goldman of Chevy Chase, Maryland, vice chair of the IOM’s Gulf War and Health Study, was a member of the RAC.

Asked about its own critique of the IOM, Steve R. Smithson, a spokesman for the RAC, said: “The referral of the report to IOM, in light of the evidence that VA has effectively compromised and manipulated previous IOM Gulf War reports, is a transparent effort to continue to delay and deny the need to deal with this important veterans’ health problem … It should … have the previous IOM exposure reports redone, as recommended in the RAC report.” He continued, “The VA inaccurately stated in its referral statement that the law requires referring Gulf War research to the IOM. In fact, the law in question only requires that the IOM prepare specific reports as to whether toxic substances to which troops were exposed can cause health problems….”

Stencel replied, “The Institute of Medicine follows a study process that has been used over many years by all the branches of the National Academy of Sciences. It yields hundreds of reports that are considered authoritative, reliable assessments of matters of science and technology … Study reports’ findings and recommendations must be supported by and grounded in scientific evidence.”

The VA’s spokesman, Benson, said, “Caring for all veterans, including veterans who served in combat during the 1991 Gulf War, is VA’s highest priority. With this in mind, VA requested that the IOM, as part of the current congressionally mandated Gulf War veteran health review, take a look at the new RAC report.”

However, the VA called for the IOM’s opinion on the RAC report despite saying: the IOM’s series of reports have been “skewed and limited by a restrictive approach to the scientific tasks mandated by Congress, an approach directed by VA in commissioning the reports.” In fact, the IOM had by then already concluded that evidence was insufficient to link depleted uranium munitions dust with Gulf War illnesses. And, it also found the anthrax vaccine not to be a factor in Gulf War illnesses. On the other hand, the RAC’s report said more evidence is needed to prove that depleted uranium and the anthrax vaccine were factors in Gulf War illnesses.

Anthrax Vaccine and Depleted Uranium Dust Controversies

So, after closing on a nearly two decades of research and investigation, it appears to some veterans and their advocates that sick veterans may be back to where they started when looking for help in the early 1990s. And, yet, many of them believe evidence is overwhelming that both depleted uranium dust and the old anthrax vaccine created many of the Gulf War illnesses now suffered by veterans.

In the era of the 1991 Iraq war, the vaccine was manufactured by Michigan Biologic Products, a state-owned facility, regularly criticized for serious shortcomings during health and other inspections. On the one hand, the RAC’s research rejected proof of a link between anthrax vaccinations of Gulf War veterans and their multiple illnesses. But, on the other, Dr. Meryl Nass, who has studied the vaccine extensively, said that the committee’s own report cited conflicting data from nine studies of the vaccine. All nine studies found a relationship between receiving anthrax vaccine and developing symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome, she said. “In eight of the nine studies, the relationship was statistically significant,” Dr. Nass explained.

And, before the war, a Congressional investigation recommended against using the vaccine. During 1989 US Senate hearings about the military’s readiness to combat biological warfare, then Assistant Secretary of Defense Robert B. Barker stated, “current vaccines, particularly the anthrax vaccine, do not readily lend themselves to use in mass troop immunization.” He cited a higher-than-desirable rate of adverse reactions to the drug. An, he added, the vaccine “in some cases, (lacks) strong enough (effectiveness) against infection by the aerosol route of exposure.” That is exactly the exposure for which the Pentagon then used it two years later for some 150,000 service members headed for the Gulf War. And yet, many question the need for the vaccine in light of the fact that the spores it supposedly protects service members from have never been used successfully by terrorists or enemies of the United States, or any country, for that matter. As far as the vaccine’s health dangers are concerned, the RAC inquiry itself said, “The IOM report concluded that rates of acute adverse reactions to [the anthrax inoculations] appeared comparable to other vaccines … however, recently published studies indicate that [the anthrax vaccine] is associated with extremely high rates of acute, local reactions, higher than is typical of other vaccines.”

Dr. Steele said, “We respect Dr. Nass and have reviewed her writings and comments over the years, including comments she has provided at RAC meetings. Our review of the evidence did indicate that the anthrax vaccine is associated with a high rate of acute, local reactions … But … there was limited evidence concerning long-term health effects of the vaccine, and little evidence supporting an association specifically with Gulf War illness.”

“The fact that the vaccine in current use is associated with a high rate of short-term reactions, especially at the injection site, does not tell us about its potential to cause chronic illness like that affecting Gulf War veterans,” said the doctor. “We actually did identify eight different studies in which an association between anthrax vaccine and chronic symptoms was assessed in five different groups of Gulf War veterans. As with most other Gulf War exposures, many of these studies appeared to show a significant association between symptoms and receipt of the anthrax vaccine, as Dr. Nass mentioned in her comments. However, the link between symptoms and anthrax vaccine was consistently weaker than for most other exposures.”

As for depleted uranium, the RAC concluded it was not a long-term health threat. “Overall, these [numerous scientific and governmental] reviews have consistently found that available evidence indicates that DU exposures, at levels experienced by the majority of Gulf War veterans, are not expected to produce long-term health effects, specifically in relation to excess cancer rates and chronic renal disease,” said the report.

But, Dr. Steele insisted nonetheless: “It is important, again, to be clear that the Committee’s report did not address the question of whether or not DU poses a health threat of any kind. We found, rather, that the available evidence, of different types, does not support DU as a cause of Gulf War illness.” She explained that more epidemiologic research is needed to link DU exposure with any other types of health problems in Gulf War veterans.

Depleted uranium dust blew widely over Iraq and Kuwait during both wars in Iraq from the myriad of US Army and British munition firings aimed at destroying tanks and other armored vehicles. The deadly dust hangs around for millions of years, and is incredibly expensive to clean up and dispose of. So, no one can know when the wind will blow the dust into the lungs, a drinking water supply or soil growing crops for animals and humans.

The US military first began plans to use depleted uranium munitions in the 1970s. They were manufactured as a cheap munition, profit-lucrative to producers, from radioactive waste products generated in the nuclear industry. Once fired, they destroy their targets with incredible fiery heat, creating a chemical, radiated dust, which can blow in the wind for many miles. If unknowing persons inhale, drink or ingest the dust, it stays in their bodies for many years. That creates the danger of cancers, kidney disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, Lou Gehrig’s, Parkinson’s, Hodgkin’s diseases, and a number of other sicknesses, some scientific researchers say. When depleted uranium munitions are test fired in the US or Britain, the strict rules controlling cleanup are seldom followed.

“Veterans and civilians in these wars WERE exposed to DU, and this inhaled DU represents a seriously enhanced risk of damaged immune systems and fatal cancers.” Rosalie Bertell, PhD, GNSH, told Abolition 2000, a Global Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons.

Although denying Bertell’s and many others’ assessments that depleted uranium dust is a severe health hazard, the IOM last year concluded: “Military personnel have been exposed to depleted uranium as a result of friendly-fire incidents, cleanup and salvage operations, and proximity to burning depleted-uranium-containing tanks and ammunition. During the Gulf War, an estimated 134-164 people experienced ‘level I’ exposure (the highest of three exposure categories as classified by the US Department of Defense) through wounds caused by depleted-uranium fragments, inhalation of airborne depleted-uranium particles, ingestion of depleted-uranium residues, or wound contamination by depleted-uranium residues. Hundreds or thousands more may have been exposed to lower exposure through inhalation of dust containing depleted-uranium particles and residue or ingestion from hand-to-mouth contact or contamination of clothing.”

Neither the IOM nor the VA Research Advisory Committee reports detailed the potential of strong or even weak winds carrying DU dust for many miles and thus exposing more humans, animals, plants and soil to its radiation hazards. “The US Department of Defense has acknowledged that 320 tons of DU munitions were expended, whereas the nuclear research foundation LAKA, of Holland, estimates that the total amount of DU used in Iraq and Kuwait exceeded 800 tons,” said Damacio A. Lopez, the executive director of the International DU Study Team. “The International Committee of Radiological Protection estimates that enough DU was used to cause 500,000 potential deaths, if it were inhaled.”

Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, has called for further Congressional investigations, to pierce the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ “questionable” relationship with the Institute of Medicine and both of their failures to properly investigate Gulf War illnesses. Sullivan said he wants “Congress to investigate the handful of top VA officials who blocked the scientific literature review into Gulf War illnesses … including both human and animal studies, to determine whether toxic exposures can cause health effects among our veterans deployed to Southwest Asia during 1990 and 1991. VA employees appear to have conspired with IOM staff to cook the books and eliminate consideration of critical animal research. Since most research on toxic substances is conducted in animals for ethical reasons, the result has been that the IOM committees have found no connections, and health-care and benefits for veterans remains very minimal.”

Stencel said the IOM would not comment on Sullivan’s statement. But VA spokesman Jim Benson said, “Overall, these congressionally-mandated IOM committee reports have found a broad spectrum of possible health effects associated with a range of potential Gulf War hazards, most of which have been well established in the existing occupational health literature. Their reports have not identified any new or unique illnesses among veterans of the 1991 Gulf War.”

“These independent analyses of Gulf War veteran health issues,” said Benson, “have been useful as an independent and scientifically highly credible evaluation of the nature and the causes of Gulf War veterans’ health problems. [They] have been the basis for the [VA] Secretary’s decision to establish presumptions of service connection for nine infectious diseases associated with service in the Gulf War region. That decision will be implemented through forthcoming rule-making procedures.”

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
Monday, November 17, 2008; 12:00 AM

MONDAY, Nov. 17 (HealthDay News) — Gulf War illness, dismissed by some as a psychosomatic disorder, is a very real illness that affects at least 25 percent of the 700,000 U.S. veterans who took part in the 1991 Gulf War.

Its likely cause was exposure to toxic chemicals that included pesticides that were often overused during the war, as well as a drug given to U.S. troops to protect them from nerve gas, a frequent weapon of choice of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

And no effective treatments have been devised for the disorder.

Those are three key conclusions of a Congressionally mandated landmark report released Monday by a federal panel of scientific experts and veterans.

“It is very clear that Gulf War illness is a real condition that was not caused by combat stress or other psychological factors,” said Lea Steele, scientific director of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, which issued the report, and an associate professor at Kansas State University.

“This is something we need to take seriously,” Steele said. “These folks were injured in wartime service, much as people who were shot with bullets or hit with bombs.”

The committee presented the 450-page report to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake.

Gulf War illness is frequently described as a collection of symptoms that includes memory and concentration problems, chronic headaches, fatigue and widespread pain. Other symptoms can include persistent digestive problems, respiratory symptoms and skin rashes.

The panel also said Gulf War veterans have much higher rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease) than other veterans, and soldiers who were downwind from large-scale munitions demolitions in 1991 have died from brain cancer at twice the rate of other Gulf War veterans.

In reaching its conclusions, the panel reviewed evidence about a wide range of possible environmental exposures that could cause Gulf War illness. That review included hundreds of studies of Gulf War veterans, research in other groups of populations, animal studies of toxic exposures, and government investigations about events and exposures during the Gulf War, which began after Hussein invaded Kuwait.

Speculation about the causes of Gulf War illness has included exposure to depleted uranium munitions, vaccines, nerve agents and oil well fires.

The new report says the illness was caused by soldiers’ exposure to certain chemicals, Steele said.

“When you put all the evidence together there are two chemicals that jump out as the main causes,” she said. One is a drug called pyridostigmine bromide, which is a cholinesterase inhibitor that was given to the troops to protect them against nerve gas.

“It turns out that people who took those pills have a higher rate of Gulf War illness,” Steele said. “And people who took more pills have even higher rates of Gulf War illness.”

In addition, soldiers were exposed to pesticides that were also cholinesterase inhibitors, Steele said. “The strongest evidence points to pyridostigmine bromide and pesticides as causal factors,” she said. “This type of illness has not been seen after other wars.”

While pyridostigmine bromide is still in use, its use is more limited than it was in the first Gulf War. It’s currently being used against one type of nerve agent, but is not being given out on a widespread basis, Steele said.

“The Gulf War was the only time a lot of people used this drug,” she said.

Steele added that the U.S. military has also cut back on its use of pesticides since the 1991 war.

There are other factors that, while not likely causes of Gulf War illness, can’t be ruled out, Steele said. These include exposure to nerve agents, exposure to smoke from oil well fires, and vaccines given to the troops. The panel ruled out depleted uranium and anthrax vaccine as causes.

The panel also found government research and funding into Gulf War illness wanting. “There has not been sufficient attention given to Gulf War illness. It’s a real problem,” Steele said.

“In recent years, both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs have reported a lot of studies that weren’t Gulf War illness as Gulf War research,” Steele added. “Some of the money was misused.”

The panel noted that overall federal funding for Gulf War research has declined substantially in recent years; the group urged lawmakers to devote $60 million annually to such programs.

When veterans with Gulf War illness go to Veterans Administration hospitals for treatment, their problems often aren’t taken seriously, Steele said. “VA docs often know nothing about it and aren’t able to help them. Sometimes they treat them as if they are head cases or malingering,” she said.

James Binns is chairman of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses.

“We have no treatments that work,” said Binns, a Vietnam veteran and former Pentagon official. “I would like to see the new administration take this more seriously. When you look at all the studies, it’s as clear as the nose on your face that this [Gulf War illness] is real.”

It took 20 years to admit that Agent Orange, a defoliant used in the Vietnam war, caused illness, Binns said. “It’s now coming up to 17 years on Gulf War illness,” he said. “Troop exposures [to these chemicals] were a serious but honest mistake. Covering it up rather than trying to help them has been unconscionable.”

More information

Learn more about Gulf War illness from the University of Chicago Medical Center.

SOURCES: Lea Steele, Ph.D., associate professor, Kansas State University, Manhattan, and scientific director, Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses; James Binns, chairman, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans’ Affairs and International Relations

UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 24th 2002

Dr. Garth Nicolson is currently the President, Chief Scientific Officer and Research Professor at the Institute for Molecular Medicine in Huntington Beach, California. He was formally the David Bruton Jr. Chair in Cancer Research, Professor and Chairman at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and Professor of Internal Medicine and Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. He was also Adjunct Professor of Comparative Medicine at Texas A & M University. Among the most cited scientists in the world, having published over 520 medical and scientific papers, edited 14 books, served on the Editorial Boards of 20 medical and scientific journals, including the Journal of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and currently serving as Editor of two (Clinical & Experimental Metastasis and the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry), Professor Nicolson has held numerous peer-reviewed research grants. He is a recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Medal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Stephen Paget Award of the Metastasis Research Society and the U. S. National Cancer Institute Outstanding Investigator Award.

It is now over a decade since the Persian Gulf War, but over 100,000 U. S. veterans still suffer from various illnesses attributed to their service [1-4]. Although some Gulf War Illnesses (GWI) patients have unique signs and symptoms [5], most do not have some new syndrome (Gulf War Syndrome) [6]. These illnesses are more properly called GWI, and we believe that they are due to accumulated toxic insults that cause chronic illnesses with relatively nonspecific signs and symptoms [1-4,7].

Over the last few years researchers have published much higher prevalence rates of GWI in deployed than in non-deployed forces [8-10]. Case control studies of Gulf War veterans showed higher symptom prevalence in deployed than in non-deployed personnel from the same units [9,10]. For certain signs and symptoms, this difference was dramatic (for example, the rate of diarrhea in the deployed group was over 13-times greater than in the non-deployed group [9]). Steele [10] showed that in three studies, Gulf War-deployed forces had excess rates of GWI symptom patterns, indicating beyond a doubt that GWI is a major problem that needs to be adequately addressed.

Ten Years Later — Obtaining an Adequate Diagnosis of GWI

For years the Departments of Defense (DoD) and Veterans’ affairs (DVA) promoted the notion that Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was a major factor in GWI [11]. Most researchers doubt that stress is a major cause of GWI [1-5,7], and it certainly does not explain how some immediate family members presented after the war with the same signs and symptoms [2,3,12]. Even psychiatrists who have studied GWI do not believe that GWI is explainable as PTSD [13]. Researchers find that GWI cases differ from PTSD, depression, somatoform disorder and malingering [7,14]. Although most GWI patients do not appear to have PTSD, they are often paced in this diagnosis category by DoD and DVA physicians. GWI can be diagnosed within ICD-10-coded diagnosis categories, such as fatiguing illness (G93.3), but they often receive a diagnosis of ‘unknown illness.’ This, unfortunately, results in their receiving reduced disability assessments and benefits and essentially little or no effective treatments. It’s not that they are any less sick than their compatriots with ICD-10 diagnoses, they just don’t fit within the military’s or DVA’s diagnosis systems. In addition, many active-duty members of the Armed Forces are hesitant to admit that they have GWI, because they feel strongly that it will hurt their careers or result in their being medically discharged. They have good reason to fear this, because many officers that we have assisted eventually retired or resigned their commissions because of imposed limits to their careers [15].

Psychiatrists often decide in the absence of contrary laboratory findings that GWI is a somatoform disorder caused by stress, instead of organic or medical problems that can be treated with medicines or treatments not used for PTSD or other somatoform disorders. The evidence that psychiatrists have offered as proof that stress or PTSD is the source of most GWI is the assumption that most veterans must have suffered from stress by virtue of the stressful environment in which they found themselves during the Gulf War [15]. However, most veterans do not feel that stress-related diagnoses are an accurate portrayal of their illnesses. Testimony to the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight questions the notion that stress is the major cause of GWI [16], and the General Accounting Office (GAO) has concluded that while stress can induce some physical illness, it is not established as the major cause of GWI [17]. Stress can exacerbate chronic illnesses and suppress immune systems, but most military personnel that we interviewed indicated that the Gulf War was not a particularly stressful war, and they strongly disagreed that stress was the origin of their illnesses [18]. However, in the absence of physical or laboratory tests that can identify possible origins of GWI, many DoD and VA physicians accept that stress is the cause. It has been argued that the arthralgias, fatigue, memory loss, rashes and diarrhea found in GWI patients are nonspecific and often lack a physical cause [19], but this conclusion may simply be the result of inadequate workup and lack of availability of routine tests that could define the underlying organic etiologies for these conditions [7].

It has also been claimed that there are no unique illnesses associated with deployment to the Gulf War–similar clusters of illness (albeit at lower rates) can be found in non-Gulf War veterans deployed to Bosnia [8]. Such epidemiological analyses have been criticized on the basis of self-reporting and self-selection [19], and the veterans under study may not be representative [8]. These criticisms notwithstanding, it remains important to characterize signs and symptoms and identify exposures, if possible, of Gulf War veterans in order to find effective treatments for specific subsets of GWI patients. We have been trying for years to get the DoD to acknowledge that different exposures can result in quite different illnesses, even though signs and symptoms profiles may overlap.

How Does GWI Differ from Other Chronic Fatiguing Illnesses?

GWI patients can have 20-40 or more chronic signs and symptoms, including chronic fatigue, headaches, memory loss, muscle pain, nausea, gastrointestinal problems, joint pain, lymph node pain, memory loss, increased chemical sensitivities, among others [1-5]. Often included in this complex clinical picture are increased sensitivities to various environmental agents and enhanced allergic responses. Civilian patients with similar signs and symptoms are usually diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS) or Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) [2,3,7]. Although clear-cut laboratory tests on GWI, CFS and FMS are not yet available, some tests that have been used in recent years for GWI are not consistent with a psychiatric origin for GWI [20-25].

Chronic Illnesses and Chemical Exposures

It has been documented that chemical and biological exposures occurred during the Gulf War, and many civilian patients may have been exposed to chemical and biological substances that could be the underlying causes of their illnesses [1-3,7]. The variable incubation times, ranging from months to years after presumed exposure, the cyclic nature of the relapsing fevers and other signs and symptoms, and the types of signs and symptoms of GWI are consistent with diseases caused by combinations of biological and/or chemical or radiological agents (Figure 1) [1,7].

Gulf War veterans were exposed to a variety of chemicals, including insecticides, such as the insect repellent N, N-dimethyl-m-toluamide, the insecticide permethrin and other organophosphates, fumes and smoke from burning oil wells, the anti-nerve agent pyridostigmine bromide, solvents used to clean equipment and a variety of other chemicals [1,2,7]. This also includes in some cases, possible exposures to low levels of Chemical Warfare (CW) agents. Some CW exposure may have occurred because of destruction of CW stores in factories and storage bunkers during and after the war as well as possible offensive use of CW agents [27]. Although some former DoD physicians feel that there was no credible evidence for CW exposure [19], many veterans have been notified by the DoD of possible CW exposures.

Figure 1. Hypothesis on how multiple toxic exposures, including multiple vaccines (2), chemical (3), radiological and biological (4) exposures, may have resulted in GWI in predisposed, susceptible individuals (1) [modified from Nicolson et al.(7)].

Exposures to mixtures of toxic chemicals can result in chronic illnesses, even if the exposures were at low-levels [20,21,28,29]. Such exposures can cause a wide variety of signs and symptoms, including chronic neurotoxicity and immune supression. Combinations of pyridostigmine bromide, N,N-dimethyl-m-toluamide and permethrin produce neurotoxicity, diarrhea, salivation, shortness of breath, locomotor dysfunctions, tremors, and other impairments in healthy adult hens [28]. Although low levels of individual organophosphate chemicals may not cause signs and symptoms in exposed, non-deployed civilian workers [30], this does not negate a causal role of multiple chemical exposures in causing chronic illnesses such as GWI. Organophosphate-Induced Delayed Neurotoxicity (OPIDN) [31] is an example of chronic illness that may be caused by multiple, low level chemical exposures (Figure 1). Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Syndrome (MCS) has also been proposed to result from multiple low level chemical exposures [32]. These syndromes can present with many of the signs and symptoms found in GWI patients, and many GWI cases may eventually be explained by complex chemical exposures.

In chemically exposed GWI patients, memory loss, headaches, cognitive problems, severe depression, loss of concentration, vision and balance problems and chemical sensitivities, among others, typify the types of signs and symptoms characteristic of organophosphate exposures. Arguments have been advanced by former military physicians that such exposures do not explain GWI, or that they may only be useful for a small subset of GWI patients [19]. These arguments for the most part are based on the effects of single agent exposures, not the multiple, complex exposures that were encountered by Gulf War veterans [33]. The onset of signs and symptoms of GWI for most patients was between six months and two years or more after the end of the war. Such slow onset of clinical signs and symptoms in chemically exposed individuals is not unusual for OPIDN [34]. Since low-level exposure to organophosphates was common in U.S. veterans, the appearance of delayed, chronic signs and symptoms similar to OPIDN could have been caused by multiple low-level exposures to pesticides, nerve agents, anti-nerve agents and/or other organophosphates, especially in certain subsets of GWI patients.

Radiological Exposures and GWI

Depleted uranium (DU) was used extensively in the Gulf War, and it remains an important battlefield contaminant. When a DU penetrator hits an armored target, it ignites, and between 10% and 70% of the shell aerosolizes, forming uranium oxide particles [35]. The particles that form are usually small (less than 5 µm in diameter) and due to their high density settle quickly onto vehicles, bunkers and the surrounding sand, where they can be easily inhaled, ingested or re-aerosolized. Following contamination, DU can be found in the lungs and regional lymph nodes, kidney and bone. Additionally, the Armed Forces Radiological Research Institute (AFRRI) found DU in blood, liver, spleen and brain of rats injected with DU pellets [36]. Studies on DU carriage should be initiated as soon as possible to determine the prevalence of contamination, and extent of body stores of uranium and other radioactive heavy metals. Procedures have been developed for analysis of DU metal fragments [37] and DU in urine [38]. However, urine testing does not detect uranium in all body sites [36]. So far, analysis of DU-contaminated Gulf War veterans has not shown them to have severe signs and symptoms of GWI [38], but few Gulf War veterans have been studied for DU contamination.

Other Environmental Exposures and GWI

In addition to chemical exposures, soldiers were exposed to burning oil well fires and ruptured petroleum pipelines as well as fine, blowing sand. The small size of sand particles (much less than 0.1 mm) and the relatively constant winds in the region probably resulted in some sand inhalation. The presence of small sand particles deep in the lungs can produce a pulmonary inflammatory disorder that can progress to pneumonitis or Al-Eskan Disease [39]. Al-Eskan disease, characterized by reactive airways, usually presents as a pneumonitis that can eventually progress to pulmonary fibrosis, and possibly immunosuppression followed by opportunistic infections. Although it is doubtful that many GWI patients have Al-Eskan Disease, the presence of silica-induced immune suppression in some soldiers could have contributed to persisting opportunistic infections in these patients.

Biological Exposures and GWI

System-wide or systemic chemical insults and/or chronic infections that can penetrate various tissues and organs, including the Central and Peripheral Nervous Systems, are important in GWI [1-5,7]. When such infections occur, they can cause the complex signs and symptoms seen in CFS, FMS and GWI, including immune dysfunction. Changes in environmental responses as well as increased titers to various endogenous viruses that are commonly expressed in these patients have been seen in CFS, FMS and GWI. Few infections can produce the complex chronic signs and symptoms found in these patients; however, the types of infection caused by Mycoplasma and Brucella species that have been found in GWI patients, can cause complex problems found in GWI [reviews: 23,40,41]. These microorganisms are now considered important emerging pathogens in causing chronic diseases as well as being important cofactors in some illnesses, including AIDS and other immune dysfunctional conditions [23,40,41].

Evidence for infectious agents has been found in GWI patients’ urine [4] and blood [12,26,42-44]. We [12,26,42,43] and others [44] have found that most of the signs and symptoms in a large subset of GWI patients can be explained by chronic pathogenic bacterial infections, such as Mycoplasma and Brucella infections. In studies of over 1,500 U. S. and British veterans with GWI, approximately 40-50% of GWI patients have PCR evidence of such infections, compared to 6-9% in the non-deployed, healthy population [review: 23]. This has been confirmed in a large study of 1,600 veterans at over 30 DVA and DoD medical centers (VA Cooperative Clinical Study Program #475, S. Donta and C. Engel, statements at the NIH Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Coordinating Board, 2/00). Historically, mycoplasmal infections were thought to produce relatively mild diseases limited to particular tissues or organs, such as urinary tract or respiratory system [23,40,41]. However, the mycoplasmas detected in GWI patients with molecular techniques are highly virulent, colonize a wide variety of organs and tissues, and are difficult to treat [23,45,46]. The mycoplasma most commonly detected in GWI, Mycoplasma fermentans (found in >80% of those GWI patients positive for any mycoplasma), is found intracellularly. It is unlikely that this type of infection will result in a strong antibody response, which may explain the DoD’s lack of serologic evidence for these types of intracellular infections [47].

When civilian patients with CSF or FMS were similarly examined for systemic mycoplasmal infections 50-60% of these patients were positive, indicating another link between these disorders and GWI [23]. In contrast to GWI, however, several species of mycoplasmas other than M. fermentans were found in higher percentages of CSF/ME and FMS patients and most had multiple infections [48,49].
GWI can Spread to Immediate Family Members

During the last year we have documented the spread of GWI infections to immediate family members [12]. According to one U. S. Senate study [50], GWI has spread to family members, and it is likely that it has also spread in the workplace [18]. Although the official position of the DoD/DVA is that family members have not contracted GWI, these studies [12,50] indicate that at least a subset of GWI patients have a transmittable illness. Laboratory tests revealed that GWI family members have the same chronic infections [12] that have been found in ~40% of the ill veterans [42-44]. We examined military families (149 patients; 42 veterans, 40 spouses, 32 other relatives and 35 children) with at least one family complaint of illness) selected from a group of 110 veterans with GWI who tested positive (~41% overall) for mycoplasmal infections. Consistent with previous results, over 80% of GWI patients who were positive for blood mycoplasmal infections had only one Mycoplasma species, M. fermentans. In healthy control subjects the incidence of mycoplasmal infection was 7%, several mycoplasma species were found, and none were found to have multiple mycoplasmal species (P 0.001). In 107 family members of GWI patients with a positive test for mycoplasma, there were 57 patients (53%) that had essentially the same signs and symptoms as the veterans and were diagnosed with CFS or FMS. Most of these patients also had mycoplasmal infections compared to non-symptomatic family members (P 0.001). The most common species found in CFS patients in the same families as GWI patients was M. fermentans, the same infection found in the GWI patients. The most likely conclusion is that certain subsets of GWI can transmit their illness and airborne infections to immediate family members [12].

As chronic illnesses like GWI (and in some cases CFS and FMS) progress, there are a number of accompanying clinical problems, particularly autoimmune signs/symptoms, such as those seen in Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lew Gehrig’s Disease, see below), Lupus, Graves’ Disease, Arthritis and other complex autoimmune diseases. Mycoplasmal infections can penetrate into nerve cells, synovial cells and other cell types [40,41]. The autoimmune signs and symptoms can be caused when intracellular pathogens, such as mycoplasmas, escape from cellular compartments and stimulate the host’s immune system. Microorganisms like mycoplasmas can incorporate into their own structures pieces of host cell membranes that contain important host membrane antigens that can trigger autoimmune responses or their surface antigens may be similar to normal cell surface antigens. Thus patients with such infections may have unusual autoimmune signs and symptoms

Involvement of Infections in Gulf War Veterans with ALS

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is an adult-onset, idiopathic, progressive degenerative disease affecting both central and peripheral motor neurons. Patients with ALS show gradual progressive weakness and paralysis of muscles due to destruction of upper motor neurons in the motor cortex and lower motor neurons in the brain stem and spinal cord, ultimately resulting in death, usually by respiratory failure [51]. Gulf War veterans show at least twice the expected incidence of ALS.

We have recently investigated the presence of systemic mycoplasmal infections in the blood of Gulf War veterans and civilians with ALS [52]. Almost all ALS patients (~83%, including 100% of Gulf War veterans with ALS) showed evidence of Mycoplasma species in blood samples. All Gulf War veterans with ALS were positive for M. fermentans, except one that was positive for M. genitalium. In contrast, the 22/28 civilians with detectable mycoplasmal infections had M. fermentans (59%) as well as other Mycoplasama species in their blood, and two of the civilian ALS patients had multiple mycoplasma species. Of the few control patients that were positive, only two patients (2.8%) were positive for M. fermentans (P 0.001). The results support the suggestion that infectious agents may play a role in the pathogenesis and/or progression of ALS, or alternatively ALS patients are extremely susceptible to systemic mycoplasmal infections [52]. In the GWI patients mycoplasmal infections may have increased their susceptibility to ALS, which may explain the recent VA studies showing that there is an increased risk of ALS in Gulf War veterans.

Successful Treatment of GWI Mycoplasmal Infections

We have found that mycoplasmal infections in GWI, CFS, FMS and RA can be successfully treated with multiple courses of specific antibiotics, such as doxycycline, ciprofloxacin, azithromycin, clarithromycin or minocycline [45,46,53-55], along with other nutritional recommendations. Multiple treatment cycles are required, and patients relapse often after the first few cycles, but subsequent relapses are milder and most patients eventually recover [42,43]. GWI patients who recovered from their illness after several (3-7) 6-week cycles of antibiotic therapy were retested for mycoplasmal infection and were found to have reverted to a mycoplasma-negative phenotype [42,43]. The therapy takes a long time because of the microorganisms involved are slow-growing and are localized deep inside cells in tissues, where it is more difficult to achieve proper antibiotic therapeutic concentrations. Although anti-inflammatory drugs can alleviate some of the signs and symptoms of GWI, they quickly return after discontinuing drug use. If the effect was due to an anti-inflammatory action of the antibiotics, then the antibiotics would have to be continuously applied and they would be expected to eliminate only some of the signs and symptoms of GWI. In addition, not all antibiotics, even those that have anti-inflammatory effects, appear to work. Only the types of antibiotics that are known to be effective against mycoplasmas are effective; most have no effect at all, and some antibiotics make the condition worse. Thus the antibiotic therapy does not appear to be a placebo effect, because only a few types of antibiotics are effective and some, like penicillin, make the condition worse. We also believe that this type of infection is immune-suppressing and can lead to other opportunistic infections by viruses and other microorganisms or increases in endogenous virus titers. We have also found Brucella infections in GWI patients but we have not examined enough patients to establish a prevalence rate among veterans with GWI.

The true percentage of mycoplasma-positive GWI patients overall is likely to be somewhat lower than found in our studies (41-45%) [12,42,43] and those published by others (~50%) [44]. This is reasonable, since GWI patients that have come to us for assistance are probably more advanced patients (with more progressed disease) than the average patient. Our diagnostic results have been confirmed in a large study DVA/DoD study (~40% positive for mycoplasmal infections, VA Cooperative Clinical Study Program #475). This DVA study is a controlled clinical trial that will test the usefulness of antibiotic treatment of mycoplasma-positive GWI patients. This clinical trial is based completely on our research and publications on the diagnosis and treatment of chronic infections in GWI patients [42,43,53-55]. This clinical trial is complete but the treatment results have not yet been analyzed. There is a major concern that the DoD/DVA will not be forthcoming about this trial.

Vaccines Given During Deployment and GWI

A possible source for immune disturbances and chronic infections found in GWI patients is the multiple vaccines that were administered close together around the time of deployment to the Gulf War. Unwin et al. [8] and Cherry et al. [56] found a strong association between GWI and the multiple vaccines that were administered to British Gulf War veterans. Unwin et al. [8] and Goss Gilroy [57] also noted an association specifically with anthrax vaccine and GWI symptoms in British and Canadian veterans. Steele [10] found a three-fold increased incidence of GWI in nondeployed veterans from Kansas who had been vaccinated in preparation for deployment, compared to non-deployed, non-vaccinated veterans. Finally, Mahan et al. [58] found a two-fold increased incidence of GWI symptoms in U.S. veterans who recalled they had received anthrax vaccinations at the time of the Gulf War, versus those who thought they had not. These studies associate GWI with the multiple vaccines given during deployment, and they may explain the high prevalence rates of chronic infections in GWI patients [59,60].

GWI signs and symptoms have developed in Armed Forces personnel who recently received the anthrax vaccine. On some military bases this has resulted in chronic illnesses in as many as 7-10% of personnel receiving the vaccine [60]. The chronic signs and symptoms associated with anthrax vaccination are similar, if not identical, to those found in GWI patients, suggesting that at least some of the chronic illnesses suffered by veterans of the Gulf War were caused by military vaccines [59,60]. Undetectable microorganism contaminants in vaccines could have resulted in illness, and may have been more likely to do so in those with compromised immune systems. This could include individuals with DU or chemical exposures, or personnel who received multiple vaccines in a short period of time. Since contamination with mycoplasmas has been found in commercial vaccines [61], the vaccines used in the Gulf War should be considered as a possible source of the chronic infections found in GWI. Some of these vaccines, such as the filtered, cold-stored anthrax vaccine are prime suspects in GWI, because they could be easily contaminated with mycoplasmal infections and other microorganisms [62].

Inadequate Responses of the DoD and DVA to GWI

In general, the response of the DoD and DVA to the GWI problem has been inadequate, and it continues to be inadequate. The response started with denial that there were illnesses associated with service in the Gulf War; it has continued with denial that what we (biological exposures) and others (chemical exposures) have found in GWI patients are important in the diagnosis and treatment of GWI, and it continues today with the denial that military vaccines could be a major source of GWI. For example, in response to our publications and formal lectures at the DoD (1994 and 1996) and DVA (1995), the DoD stated in letters to various members of Congress and to the press that M. fermentans infections are commonly found, not dangerous and not even a human pathogen, and our results have not been duplicated by other laboratories. These statements were completely false. The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences taught its medical students for years that this type of infection is very dangerous and can progress to system-wide organ failure and death [63]. In addition, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) has been publishing for years that this type of infection can result in death in nonhuman primates [64] and in man [65]. The AFIP has also suggested treating patients with this type of infection with doxycycline [66], which is one of the antibiotics that we have recommended [53-55]. Interestingly, DoD pathologist Dr. Shih-Ching Lo holds the U. S. Patent on M. fermentans (“Pathogenic Mycoplasma”[67]), and this may be the real reason that in their original response to our work on M. fermentans infections in GWI, the DoD/DVA issued guidelines stating that GWI patients should not be treated with antibiotics like doxycycline, even though in a significant number of patients it had been shown to be beneficial. The DoD and DVA have also stated that we have not cooperated with them or the CDC in studying this problem. This is also not true. We have done everything possible to cooperate with the DoD, DVA and CDC on this problem, and we even published a letter in the Washington Post on 25 January 1997 indicating that we have done everything possible to cooperate with government agencies on GWI issues, including inviting DoD and DVA scientists and physicians to the Institute for Molecular Medicine to learn our diagnostic procedures on 23 December 1996 at a meeting convened at Walter Reed AMC. We have been and are fully prepared to share our data and procedures with government scientists and physicians. The DVA has responded with the establishment of VA Cooperative Clinical Study Program #475, but many Gulf War Referral Centers at VA Medical Centers continue to be hostile to non-psychiatric treatment of GWI. The DoD and DVA continue to deny that family members of Gulf War veterans could contract the illness or that there could be an infectious basis to GWI.

DoD/DVA Scorecard on GWI from Previous Testimony

In my previous testimony to the U. S. Congress in 1998 [15,18], some suggestions were made to correct for the apparent lack of appropriate response to GWI and the chronic infections found in GWI patients. It seems appropriate to go back and revisit these suggestions to see if any of these were taken seriously or corrected independently (Updates in italics).

1. We must stop the denial that immediate family members do not have GWI or illnesses from the Gulf War. Denial that this has occurred has only angered veterans and their families and created a serious public health problem, including spread of the illness to the civilian population and contamination of our blood supply. This item has still not been taken seriously by the DoD. The DVA has initiated a study to see if veterans’ family members have increased illnesses; however, they have decided to group GWI patients together independent of the possible origins of their illness. Since veterans who have their illness primarily due to chemical or environmental exposures that are not transmittable will be grouped with veterans who have transmittable chronic infections, it is unlikely that studying family members of both groups together will yield significant data. Whether intentional or not, this DVA study has apparently been designed to fail. Potential problems with the nation’s blood and organ tissue supply due to contamination by chronic infections in GWI and CFS patients are considered significant [68,69], but no U.S. government agency has apparently taken this seriously.

2. The ICD-9-coded diagnosis system used by the DoD and DVA to determine illness diagnosis must be overhauled. The categories in this system have not kept pace with new medical discoveries in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic illnesses. This has resulted in large numbers of patients from the Gulf War with ‘undiagnosed’ illnesses who cannot obtain treatment or benefits for their medical conditions. The DoD and DVA should be using the ICD-10 diagnosis system where a category exists for chronic fatiguing illnesses. Apparently little progress in this area has been made by the DoD or DVA.

3. Denying claims and benefits by assigning partial disabilities due to PTSD should not be continued in patients that have organic (medical) causes for their illnesses. For example, patients with chronic infections that can take up to or over a year to successfully treat should be allowed benefits. The DVA has recently shown some flexibility in this area. For example, Gulf War veterans with ALS will receive disability without having to prove that their disease was deployment-related. Similarly, GWI patients with M. fermentans infections (and also their symptomatic family members with the same infection) should receive disabilities. Thus far there has been no attempt to extend disability to GWI-associated infectious diseases. Instead of waiting for years or decades for the research to catch up to the problem, the DoD and DVA should simply accept that many of the chronic illnesses found in Gulf War veterans are deployment related and deserving of treatment and compensation.

4. Research efforts must be increased in the area of chronic illnesses. Unfortunately, federal funding for such illnesses is often re-budgeted or funds removed. For example, Dr. William Reeves of the CDC in Atlanta sought protection under the ‘Federal Whistle Blower’s Act’ after he exposed misappropriation of funds allocated for CFS at the CDC. It is estimated that over 3% of the adult U.S. population suffers from chronic fatiguing illnesses similar to GWI, yet there are few federal dollars available for research on the diagnosis and treatment of these chronic illnesses, even though each year Congress allocates such funds. There has been some progress at NIH on this issue, but in general little has changed. The DoD and DVA have spent most of the hundreds of millions of dollars allocated for GWI research on psychiatric research. Most of these funds have been spent on studies that have had negligible effect on veterans’ health.

5. Past and present senior DoD and DVA administrative personnel must be held accountable for the utter mismanagement of the entire GWI problem. This has been especially apparent in the continuing denial that chronic infections could play a role in GWI and the denial that immediate family members could have contracted their illnesses from veterans with GWI. This has resulted in sick spouses and children being turned away from DoD and DVA facilities without diagnoses or treatments. The responsibility for these civilians must ultimately be borne by the DoD and DVA. I believe that it is now accountability time. The files must be opened so the American public has a better idea as to how many veterans and civilians have died from illness associated with service in the Gulf War and how many have become sick because of an inadequate response to this health crisis. Unfortunately, little or no progress has been made on these items for the last decade or more, and the situation has not changed significantly since my last testimony in 1998.

References and Notes

1. Nicolson GL. Gulf War Illnesses—their causes and treatment. Armed Forces Med. Dev. 2001; 2:41-44. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/AFMD-Nicolson2001.htm

2. Nicolson GL, Nasralla M, Haier J, Nicolson NL. Gulf War Illnesses: Role of chemical, radiological and biological exposures. In: War and Health, H. Tapanainen, ed., Zed Press, Helinsiki, 2001; 431-446. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/whc.html

3. Nicolson, G.L. and Nicolson, N.L. Chronic Fatigue Illness and Operation Desert Storm. J. Occup. Environ. Med. 1996; 38:14-16. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/JOEM.html

4. Nicolson, G.L., Hyman, E., Korényi-Both, A., Lopez, D.A, Nicolson, N.L., Rea, W., Urnovitz, H. Progress on Persian Gulf War Illnesses: reality and hypotheses. Intern. J. Occup. Med. Tox. 1995; 4:365-370. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/JOMT-N.html

5. Murray-Leisure, K., Daniels, M.O., Sees, J., Suguitan, E., Zangwill, B., Bagheri, S., Brinser, E., Kimber, R., Kurban, R. Greene, W.H. Mucocutaneous-Intestinal-Rheumatic Desert Syndrome (MIRDS). Definition, histopathology, incubation period, clinical course and association with desert sand exposure. Intern. J. Med. 1998; 1:47-72.

6. Ismail K, Everitt B, Blatchley N, et al. Is there a Gulf War syndrome? Lancet 1999; 353:179-182.

7. Nicolson GL, Berns P, Nasralla M, Haier J, Nicolson NL, Nass M. Gulf War Illnesses: chemical, radiological and biological exposures resulting in chronic fatiguing illnesses can be identified and treated. J. Chronic Fatigue Syndr. 2002; 10:in press. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/netaGWI_JCFS.html

8. Unwin C, Blatchley N, Coker W, et al. Health of UK servicemen who served in the Persian Gulf War. Lancet 1999; 353:169-178.

9. Kizer KW, Joseph S, Rankin JT. Kizer KW, Joseph S, Rankin JT. Unexplained illness among Persian Gulf War vetrans in an Air National Guard unit: preliminary report–August 1990-March 1995. Morbid. Mortal. Week. Rep. 1995; 44:443-447.

10. Steele L. Prevalence and patterns of Gulf War Illness in Kansas veterans: association of symptoms with characteristics of person, place and time of military service. Am. J. Epidemiol. 2000; 152:992-1002.

11. Engel CC Jr, Ursano R, Magruder C, et al. Psychological conditions diagnosed among veterans seeking Department of Defense care for Gulf War-related health concerns. J. Occup. Environ. Med. 1999; 41:384-392.

12. Nicolson GL, Nasralla M, Nicolson NL, Haier J. High prevalence of mycoplasmal infections in symptomatic (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) family members of mycoplasma-positive Gulf War Illness patients. J. Chronic Fatigue Syndr. 2002; 10:in press.

13. Lange G, Tiersky L, DeLuca J, et al. Psychiatric diagnoses in Gulf War veterans with fatiguing illnesses. Psychiat. Res. 1999; 89:39-48.

14. Haley RW, Kurt TL, Hom J. Is there a Gulf War Syndrome? Searching for syndromes by factor analysis of symptoms. JAMA 1997; 277:215-222.

15. Nicolson GL. Written testimony to the Subcommittee on Benefits, Committee on Veterans’ Affaris, U. S. House of Representatives, July 16, 1998. http://www.immed.org/testimony/gulf_war_illness/ct98.html

16. U. S. Congress, House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, Gulf War veterans’: DOD continue to resist strong evidence linking toxic causes to chronic health effects, 105th Congress, 1st Session, Report 105-388, 1997.

17. U. S. General Accounting Office, Gulf War Illnesses: improved monitoring of clinical progress and reexamination of research emphasis are needed. Report GAO/SNIAD-97-163, 1997.

18. Nicolson GL. Written testimony to the Special Oversight Board for Department of Defense Investigations on Gulf War Chemical and Biological Incidents, U. S. Senate, November 19, 1998. http://www.immed.org/testimony/gulf_war_illness/ct1198.html

19. Sartin JS. Gulf War Illnesses: causes and controversies. Mayo Clinic Proc. 2000; 75:811-819.

20. Baumzweiger WE, Grove R. Brainstem-Limbic immune dysregulation in 111 Gulf War veterans: a clinical evaluation of its etiology, diagnosis and response to headache treatment. Intern. J. Med. 1998; 1:129-143.

21. Haley RW, Fleckenstein JL, Marshall WW, et al. Effect of basal ganglia injury on central dopamine activity in Gulf War Syndrome: correlation of proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy and plasma homovanillic acid levels. Arch. Neurol. 2000; 280:981-988.

22. Magill AJ, Grogl M, Fasser RA, et al. Viscerotropic leishmaniasis caused by Leishmania tropica in soldiers returning from Operation Desert Storm. (1993) N. Engl. J. Med. 1993; 328:1383-1387.

23. Nicolson GL, Nasralla M, Franco AR, et al. . Mycoplasmal infections in fatigue illnesses: Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia Syndromes, Gulf War Illness and Rheumatoid Arthritis. J. Chronic Fatigue Syndr. 2000; 6(3/4):23-39. http://www.immed.org/publications/fatigue_illness/JCFS99108t.html

24. Urnovitz HB, Tuite JJ, Higashida JM et al. RNAs in the sera of Persian Gulf War veterans have segments homologous to chromosome 22q11.2 Clin. Diagn. Lab. Immunol. 1999; 6:330-335.

25. Hannan KL, Berg DE, Baumzweiger W, et al. Activation of the coagulation system in Gulf War Illnesses: a potential pathophysiologic link with chronic fatigue syndrome, a laboratory approach to diagnosis. Blood Coag. Fibrinol. 2000; 7:673-678.

26. Nicolson, G.L., Nasralla, M, Hier, J. and Nicolson, N.L. Diagnosis and treatment of chronic mycoplasmal infections in Fibromyalgia Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: relationship to Gulf War Illness. Biomed. Therapy 1998; 16: 266-271.

27. Nicolson GL, Nicolson NL. Gulf War Illnesses: complex medical, scientific and political paradox. Med. Confl. Surviv. 1998; 14:74-83. http://www.immed.org/publications/fatigue_illness/BiomedTher98414.html

28. Abou-Donia MB, Wilmarth KR. Neurotoxicity resulting from coexposure to pyridostigmine bromide, DEET and permethrin: Implications of Gulf War exposures. J. Tox. Environ. Health 1996; 48:35-56.

29. Moss JL. Synergism of toxicity of N,N-dimethyl-m-toluamide to German cockroaches (Othopiera blattellidae) by hydrolytic enzyme inhibitors. J. Econ. Entomol. 1996; 89:1151-1155.

30. Baker DJ, Sedgwick EM. Single fibre electromyographic changes in man after organophosphate exposure. Hum. Expl. Toxicol. 1996; 15:369-375.

31. Jamal GA. Gulf War syndrome-a model for the complexity of biological and environmental interactions with human health. Adver. Drug React. Tox. Rev. 1997; 16:133-170.

32. Miller CS, Prihoda TJ. The Environmental and Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory (EESI): a standardized approacxh for quantifying symptoms and intolerances for research and clinical applications. Tox. Ind. Health 1999; 15:386-397.

33. Haley RW, Kurt TL. Self-reported exposure to neurotoxic chemical combinations in the Gulf War. A cross-sectional epidemiologic study. JAMA 1997; 277:231-237.

34. Gordon JJ, Inns RH, Johnson MK et al. The delayed neuropathic effects of nerve agents and some other organophosphorus compounds. Arch. Toxicol. 1983; 52:71-82.

35. Briefing Note 03/2001. Depleted Uranium Munitions. European Parliament Directorate General for Research-Directorate A. Scientific and Technological Options Assessment. January 2001.

36. U. S. Congress, House Subcommittee on Human Resources, Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Status of efforts to identify Gulf War Syndrome: Multiple Toxic Exposures. June 26, 1997 hearing. Washington DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998.

37. Kalinich JF, Ramakrishnan N, McClain DE. A procedure for the rapid detection of depleted uranium in metal shrapnel fragments. Mil. Med. 2000; 165:626-629.

38. Hooper FJ, Squibb KS, Siegel EL, et al. Elevated uranium excretion by soldiers with retained uranium shrapnel. Health Phys. 1999; 77:512-519.

39. Korényi-Both AL, Molnar AC, Korényi-Both AL, et al. Al Eskan disease: Desert Storm pneumonitis. Mil. Med. 1992; 157:452-462.

40. Baseman, J.B. and Tully, J.G. Mycoplasmas: Sophisticated, reemerging, and burdened by their notoriety. Emerg. Infect. Dis. 1997; 3:21-32.

41. Nicolson GL, Nasralla M, Haier J, et al. Mycoplasmal infections in chronic illnesses: Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndromes, Gulf War Illness, HIV-AIDS and Rheumatoid Arthritis. Med. Sentinel 1999; 4:172-176. http://www.immed.org/publications/fatigue_illness/ms99.html

42. Nicolson, G.L. and Nicolson, N.L. Diagnosis and treatment of mycoplasmal infections in Gulf War Illness-CFIDS patients. Intern. J. Occup. Med. Immunol. Tox. 1996; 5:69-78. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/pub4.html

43. Nicolson, G.L., Nicolson, N.L. and Nasralla, M. Mycoplasmal infections and Chronic Fatigue Illness (Gulf War Illness) associated with deployment to Operation Desert Storm. Intern. J. Med. 1997; 1:80-92.

44. Vojdani A, Franco AR. Multiplex PCR for the detectimentanfghfghhhhhhhhhhggggggs, M. hominis and M. penetrans in patients with Chronic gggFatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Gulf War Illness. J. Chronic Fatigue Syndr. 1999; 5:187-197.

45. Nicolson GL, Nasralla M, Nicolson NL. The pathogenesis and treatment of mycoplasmal infections. Antimicrob. Infect. Dis. Newsl. 1999; 17:81-88. http://www.immed.org/publications/infectious_disease/pub1-3-13-00.html

46. Nicolson GL, Nasralla M, Franco AR, et al. Diagnosis and integrative treatment of intracellular bacterial infections in Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia Syndromes, Gulf War Illness, Rheumatoid Arthritis and other chronic illnesses. Clin. Pract. Alt. Med. 2000; 1:92-102. http://www.immed.org/publications/treatment_considerations/pub2.html

47. Gray GC, Kaiser KS, Hawksworth AW, et al. No serologic evidence of an association found between Gulf War service and Mycoplasma fermentans infection. Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 1999; 60:752-757.

48. Choppa, P.C., Vojdani, A., Tagle, C., Andrin, R. and Magtoto, L. Multiplex PCR for the detection of Mycoplasma fermentans, M. hominis and M. penetrans in cell cultures and blood samples of patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Mol. Cell Probes 1998; 12:301-308.

49. Nasralla M, Haier J, Nicolson GL. Multiple mycoplasmal infections detected in blood of Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia Syndrome patients. Eur. J. Clin. Microbiol. Infect. Dis. 1999; 18:859-865. http://www.immed.org/publications/fatigue_illness/pub4.html

50. U. S. Congress, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, U. S. chemical and biological warfare-related dual use exports to Iraq and their possible impact on the health consequences of the Persian Gulf War , 103rd Congress, 2nd Session, Report May 25, 1994.

51. Walling AD. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Lou Gehrig’s Disease. Amer. Fam. Physician 1999; 59:1489-1496.

52. Nicolson GL, Nasralla M, Haier J, Pomfret J. High frequency of systemic mycoplasmal infections in Gulf War veterans and civilians with Amytrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). J. Clin. Neurosci. 2002; in press. http://www.immed.org/publications/treatment_considerations/pub2.html

53. Nicolson GL, Nicolson NL. Doxycycline treatment and Desert Storm. JAMA 1995; 273:618-619. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/jamdox.html

54. Nicolson GL. Mycoplasmal infections–Diagnosis and treatment of Gulf War Syndrome/CFIDS. CFIDS Chronicle 1996; 9(3): 66-69. http://www.immed.org/publications/fatigue_illness/pub5.html

55. Nicolson GL. Considerations when undergoing treatment for chronic infections found in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia Syndrome and Gulf War Illnesses. (Part 1). Antibiotics Recommended when indicated for treatment of Gulf War Illness/CFIDS/FMS (Part 2). Intern. J. Med. 1998; 1:115-117, 123-128. http://www.immed.org/publications/treatment_considerations/pub1.html

56. Cherry N, Creed F, Silman A, et al. Health and exposures of United Kingdom Gulf war veterans. Part II: The relation of health to exposure. J. Occup. Environ. Med. 2001; 58:299-306.

57. Goss Gilroy Inc. Health Study of Canadian Forces Personnel Involved in the 1991 Conflict in the Persian Gulf Volume I. Prepared for Gulf War Illness Advisory Committee. Ottawa: Department of National Defense. April 20, 1998. http://www.dnd.ca/menu/press/Reports/Health/health_study_eng_1.htm

58. Mahan CM, Kang HK, Ishii EK et al. Anthrax vaccination and self-reported symptoms, functional status and medical conditions in the national health survey of Gulf War era veterans and their families. Presented to the Conference on Illnesses among Gulf War Veterans: A Decade of Scientific Research. Military and Veterans Health Coordinating Board, Research Working Group. Alexandria, VA: January 24-26, 2001.

59. Nicolson GL, Nass M, Nicolson NL. Anthrax vaccine: controversy over safety and efficacy. Antimicrob. Infect. Dis. Newsl. 2000; 18(1):1-6. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/anthrax3-18-00.html

60. Nicolson GL, Nass M, Nicolson NL. The anthrax vaccine controversy. Questions about its efficacy, safety and strategy. Med. Sentinel 2000; 5:97-101. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/anthrax2-18-00.html

61. Thornton D. A survey of mycoplasma detection in vaccines. Vaccine 1986; 4:237-240.

62. Nass M. Anthrax vaccine linked to Gulf War Syndrome. Report to the Institute of Molecular Medicine, October 2, 2001. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/GWIanthraxvacc01.10.2H.html

63. Marty AM. Pathology Syllabus VI, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, pp. 91-94, 1994.

64. Lo, S.-C., Wear, D.J., Shih, W.-K., Wang, R.Y.-H., Newton, P.B. and Rodriguez, J.F. Fatal systemic infections of nonhuman primates by Mycoplasma fermentans (incognitus strain). Clin. Infect. Dis. 1993; 17(Suppl 1):S283-S288.

65. Lo, S.-C., Dawson, M.S., Newton, P.B. et al. Association of the virus-like infectious agent originally reported in patients with AIDS with acute fatal disease in previously healthy non-AIDS patients. Amer. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. 1989; 41:364-376.

66. Lo, S.-C., Buchholz, C.L., Wear, D.J., Hohm, R.C. and Marty, A.M. Histopathology and doxycycline treatment in a previously healthy non-AIDS patient systemically infected by Mycoplasma fermentans (incognitus strain). Mod. Pathol. 1991; 6:750-754.

67. Lo S-C. Pathogenic mycoplasma. U.S. Patent 5,242,820. Issued September 7, 1993.

68. Hinshaw C. American Academy of Environmental Medicine, Personal Communication, 1997.

69. Gass, R., Fisher, J., Badesch, D., et al. Donor-to-host transmission of Mycoplasma hominis in lung allograft recipients. Clin. Infect. Dis. 1996; 22:567-568.

Under penalty of perjury, I swear that the statements above are true and correct to the best of my knowledge, information and belief.

Garth L. Nicolson, PhD
President, Chief Scientific Officer and Research Professor
The Institute for Molecular Medicine and Professor of Integrative Medicine

The Institute for Molecular Medicine (Website: www.immed.org)
15162 Triton Lane
Huntington Beach, CA 92649
Tel (714) 903-2900
Fax (714) 379-2082

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008

A federal health panel released conclusions Monday that evidence strongly and consistently indicates hundreds of thousands of US troops in the first Gulf War contracted long-term illnesses from use of pills, given by their own military to protect them from effects of chemical weaponized nerve agents, and from their military’s pesticide use during deployment.

Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses report covers a large range of scientific research and government investigations on Gulf War illness. Its authors claim their “comprehensive analysis” resolves many questions about what caused Gulf War illness and what types of health care can address these serious conditions, which affect at least one in four of the 697,000 Gulf War veterans.

A committee summary describes veterans’ various, painfully nagging and long-term health obstacles. “Illness profiles typically include some combination of chronic headaches, cognitive difficulties, widespread pain, unexplained fatigue, chronic diarrhea, skin rashes, respiratory problems, and other abnormalities. This symptom complex, now commonly referred to as Gulf War illness, is not explained by routine medical evaluations or by psychiatric diagnoses and has persisted, for many veterans, for 17 years. While specific symptoms can vary between individuals, a remarkably consistent illness profile has emerged from hundreds of reports and studies of different Gulf War veteran populations from different regions of the US and from allied countries.”

In addition to pills supposedly protecting soldiers from nerve agents, the deadly agents themselves ultimately became a crucial wartime exposure. During the January and February 1991 ground war and after, US and allied forces destroyed large stores of Iraqi chemical weapons. And, as the war itself progressed, thousands of military chemical alarms went off, causing soldiers to don chemical protective equipment. Since then, the US General Accountability Office (GAO) and veterans’ advocates have repeatedly criticized the lack of quality of the chemical protective masks and protective suits worn by US troops.

Two of the most controversial after-war explosions of underground Iraqi chemical storage depots were set off by US forces themselves at Khamisiyah, Iraq, on March 4 and 10, 1991. Few of the troops were wearing protective gear at the time even though US forces had access to earlier intelligence reports detailing the chemicals inside the bombed bunkers. The Defense Department (DoD) first estimated that 5,000 troops were exposed, and then increased the estimates repeatedly until the number rose to 100,000. Another GAO report said the number is much higher than that but gave no specific figure. At the time and years afterward, the DoD claimed the troops’ exposure to chemical warfare agents was too weak to have seriously harmed their health.

Still another of the Research Advisory Committee’s conclusions says, “Studies indicate that Gulf War veterans have significantly higher rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) than other veterans, and that Gulf War veterans potentially exposed to nerve agents have died from brain cancer at elevated rates. Although these conditions have affected relatively few veterans, they are cause for concern and require continued monitoring.”

Pesticides, mentioned in Monday’s committee report, were used routinely during the war to protect service members against harmful or molesting insects biting troops throughout the Iraq war zone. Common Gulf War insecticides included d-phenothrin, chlorpyrifos, resmethrin, malathion, methomyl and lindane, according to the US Department of Defense Deployment Health Clinical Center. Deet and permethrin (a pyrethroid), are technically repellents rather than insecticides, says the center, but they were also an ultimate health concern, the center opines.

The Research Advisory Committee’s continued conclusions say that limited other evidence, not totally decisive, shows that the armed service members could have become sick from low-level exposure to chemical warfare nerve agents as well as their close proximity to oil well fires, their receipt of multiple so-called preventative vaccines, and the effects of combinations of their hazardous other Gulf War exposures.

The report was issued by the committee to US Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake. “The VA has accepted and implemented prior recommendations of the committee and values the work represented in the report presented today. Secretary Peake thanked the committee for its report and recommendations and directed VA to review and respond to the committee’s recommendations in the near future,” said Alison Aikele, a VA spokesperson. Despite receiving at least one adverse comment via email, the VA did not respond to that criticism. As well, Charlene Reynolds, a defense contract spokeswoman for the Pentagon, said the DoD is preparing a similar statement without yet being sure when it would be released.

The Committee report knocks down repeated theories of largely Pentagon-funded studies that one of the main causes of all these wartime illnesses was post-traumatic stress disorders or other mental ailments. “Gulf War illness fundamentally differs from trauma and stress-related syndromes described after other wars,” concludes the report. “Studies consistently indicate that Gulf War illness is not the result of combat or other stressors and that Gulf War veterans have lower rates of post traumatic stress disorder than veterans of other wars.” This discredits the Walter Reed Army Medical Center’s extensive studies of Gulf War veterans, which concluded stress was a major cause of Gulf War illnesses.

The Research Advisory Committee’s conclusions additionally minimize other allegedly sickening Gulf War exposures, including depleted uranium munitions blasts, anthrax vaccine use, fuels, solvents, sand and particulates, infectious diseases and chemical agent resistant coating (CARC). However, numerous other scientific reports have earlier concluded these exposures, too, sometimes proved extremely sickening for war veterans.

Highlighted by the committee’s findings is what many veterans’ advocates have called the gross negligence of responsible federal health and military agencies in repeatedly failing to get to the bottom of what the government labeled the “mysterious Gulf War syndrome” illnesses. What’s more, during three presidential reigns and several sessions of US Congresses, the highest level officials continuously discussed these hazards and resulting troop illnesses and deaths, but never came to their own ultimate conclusions or scientific plans to deal with the health consequences.

Denise Nichols, a veteran nurse, retired Army major and vice chair of National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition, has worked many years to assist sick Gulf War service members. “The veterans of the Gulf War 90-91 did not give up,” wrote the nurse. “They knew that physically something in their bodies was damaged. They have been stating this since November 1993, when the first hearings [in Congress] occurred. Their family members have seen it and tried to hold their families together waiting for answers from the government. It has been an exceedingly difficult nightmare for these veterans and their families. Many were told that it was psychological or somatic and [so] families left their veteran loved ones behind. [And,] many of these veterans have died, [been] forgotten [or] misdiagnosed. It is time now that the government declassify all [wartime and post war] records that might provide more answers. After all, in 2003, we liberated Iraq, so many ask now, ‘Why not let these records that may provide answers be fully declassified?'”

After the end of 43 days of dirty chemical and environmental Gulf War chaos when former President George H.W. Bush laid out conditions for a cease fire on Feb. 27, 1991, hundreds of thousands of US, allied, Iraqi troops and Iraqi civilians suffered resulting long-term illnesses and, ultimately, untold deaths. Very limited medical attention has ever been paid by US federal agencies to sick Iraqi civilians the US military and their private contractors were supposed to protect.

Today, close to 18 years later, US and foreign governments are still making promises, struggling and conversing over failed attempts to give the combatants and civilians proper health care. Meanwhile, as the US fights the second war in Iraq and continues along with the war in Afghanistan, the failed attempts to deal with US casualties and sicknesses continues at a similar dragged out pace. “When will they ever get it done?” war veterans have repeatedly asked themselves and others.

Monday, the 14-member Research Advisory Committee and a consultant, composed of doctors, scientists and veterans, confirmed these thousands of Gulf War One veterans’ haunting and frustrating concerns. It concluded, “Federal Gulf War research programs have not been effective, historically, in addressing priority issues related to Gulf War illness and the health of Gulf War veterans. Substantial federal Gulf War research funding has been used for studies that have little or no relevance to the health of Gulf War veterans, and for research on stress and psychiatric illness … A renewed federal research commitment is needed to identify effective treatments for Gulf War illness and address other priority Gulf War health issues.”

“After 17 years of official government delays and denials, VA’s Research Advisory Committee should be commended for their work providing facts about Gulf War illnesses,” said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense (VCS). “Veterans for Common Sense is concerned that there are up to 210,000 Gulf War veterans who remain ill after serving the 1991 Gulf War, and these veterans still need healthcare and disability benefits.”

“VCS urges Congress to fund new research into why so many Gulf War veterans are ill as well as fund research into desperately needed medical treatments for veterans. VCS also urges top VA officials to review the conduct of the VA Central Office staff who blocked scientific research and treatments for veterans, especially VA’s contracts with the Institute of Medicine that improperly excluded animal studies from scientific review. The VA Central Office staff who needlessly delayed research, treatment, and disability benefits for hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans should be held accountable for their actions,” said Sullivan.

He continued, “The facts now show that top Pentagon officials failed to assist Gulf War veterans by clinging to the myth that Gulf War illnesses was related to stress.” Sullivan went on to say that the US Army “neglected to consider the many toxic exposures as potential causes of Gulf War illnesses, even after Gulf War veterans raised these as serious possibilities.”

The committee identified four areas of highest priority research to assist sick Gulf War veterans as follows:

1) Evaluate the effectiveness of currently available treatments used for Gulf War illness or conditions with similarities to Gulf War illness.

2) Pilot trials and/or observational studies capable of identifying promising treatments suitable for evaluation in larger clinical trials.

3) Identification of specific pathophysiological mechanisms underlying Gulf War illness that are potentially amenable to treatment interventions.

4) Assess novel therapies based on scientific findings as they emerge.

What is Gulf War Syndrome?

Gulf War syndrome is a widely used term to refer to the unexplained illnesses occurring in Gulf War veterans.

What are the symptoms of Gulf War syndrome?

The following are the most common symptoms of Gulf War syndrome. However, each person experiences symptoms differently. Symptoms may include:

• fatigue
• musculoskeletal pain
• cognitive problems
• skin rashes
• diarrhea

Symptoms of Gulf War syndrome may resemble other medical conditions. Always consult your physician for a diagnosis. Symptoms continue to pose a frustrating problem for affected veterans and their physicians. Despite extensive research, the cause of the syndrome remains unexplained.

The impact of Gulf War syndrome:

According to the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, at least 12 percent of Gulf War veterans are currently receiving some form of disability compensation because of Gulf War syndrome.

What are the possible causes of Gulf War syndrome?

Possible causes include:

• chemical warfare agents, particularly nerve gas, or pyridostigmine bromide, which was given as a preventive measure to soldiers likely to be exposed to chemical warfare agents.
• psychological factors, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Veterans with Gulf War syndrome symptoms have high rates of accompanying psychiatric disorders.
• other chemical agents, such as smoke from oil well fires, pesticides, depleted uranium or exposure to solvents and corrosive liquids used during repair and maintenance.

Treatment for Gulf War syndrome:

While there is no specific treatment for Gulf War syndrome, research suggests than an approach called cognitive-behavioral therapy may help patients with non-specific symptoms syndromes lead more productive lives by actively managing their symptoms.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is conducting a two-year, scientifically controlled study to determine the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral therapy for veterans with these symptoms.

Other research involving Gulf War syndrome:

Research into Gulf War syndrome, which remains controversial, is taking place in research centers around the country.

Venus of FL
Apr 03, 2009 22:29:12 PM

GW Exposure Illnesses

The phrase Gulf War Syndrome was created by the media, Not the DoD/VA medical staff or the troops/veterans.
Very few troops/veterans got to see Environmental Medicine, Travel Medicine, Industrial Hygiene, Travel Medicine doctors unless we paid for their services out of (personal) pocket. If the incorrect diagnostics is used, one will not find abnormal values!
In 1990-91 OSHA protections, standards were not in place for deployed troops. The studies show that vaccines during this period were of poor quality and some were listed as experimental given to U.S. troops.
If only 10% suffered from exposures during GW service, there would be how many sick from 600,000 ?
These 10% is what I call disposable GI`s. Your sons and daughters.
GW syndrome does not and never existed – GW Exposure Illnesses (at least 33 variants) still disables veterans 18 years later.
Army GW incapacitated vet
http://post-deployment.blogspot.com
http://www.va.gov/gulfwaradvisorycommittee

Gulf war syndrome
I agree 100%. I’m a marine who was vaccinated. I served in the theater of operation from 09/90 thru 04/91. I was discharged 12/93. Shortly later at the VA med center JP Boston I read about Gulf War Syndrome study. I had signed up for it. My blood blood was drawn, and tested. Weeks later the results were in. I had qualified for the study. At that time I agreed to participate. I was told the reason I qualified was that I had an infection in my blood called Mycoplasma infection. It was a double blind study. Neither me or the doctor knew I was on an antibiotic or a placebo. I took medication for 12 months not knowing what I was taking. Blood was drawn once again for a follow up. The results came back negative, I had no mycoplasma in my blood. I thought this was great, but then they told me I was on a placebo for 12 months. They said I had no symptoms of GWS. After that I let it go. Until recently (thanks to the internet) I have researched GWS/Mycoplasma infection. How could I have a mycoplasma infection in my blood, and 12 Months later after being on a placebo they say my blood work is good. I don`t understand how a placebo can take mycoplasma out of your system. I have researched on this, and have found articles where the CIA has submitted false information about Iraq, and chemical weapons during Desert storm. Trying to say GWS is from Iraq`s chemical weapons. Do the research for yourself it will not take long

Dr Blockbuster (Vince) of XX
Mar 30, 2009 13:07:32 PM


Gulf War Syndrome
I am done. the VA wants me to FKN die loading me up on up to 18 diff meds a day spinning me of from one “specialist” to the next never doing a damn thing, changed my Pri care 3 times in 5 month`s, lost my records -“deny deny deny until they die”- should be the new motto. Good luck out there all you vets your gonna need it. TM out…

The Gulf Conspiracy of Gulf War Syndrome


18 years later, what do we see – just more and more and more and MORE lab experiments on possible causes of Gulf War Syndrome.

Do the Gulf Vets care about this? – no! , what they want and DESERVE WITHOUT RESERVATION is recognition of their symptoms, the best treatment available, and recompense from the respective governments. Oh, and also, I should point out that these are sought as soon as possible and not in the year 2100 when only historians will be around to consider the facts.

No doubt the “flawed vaccinations” were a major (not sole) cause of GWS and it doesn’t take a Philadelphia lawyer to work that out when you consider the negligible GWS effect on French troops who were not similarly vaccinated with the anthrax vaccine like the US and British forces. Strange also how troops vaccinated at home base at the end of the War developed symptoms though THEY NEVER WENT to the theater of operations.

Why pump all this money into research when the primary directive after 18 years is surely to treat symptoms as opposed to produce theorems. How are Gulf vets to feel reading about experiments like this … cheered or “talked over” yet again.

Even this month, in the UK, Lord Craig of Radley (Marshal of the Royal Air Force), chief of the Defense Staff in the 1991 Gulf War, called on ministers to act “urgently” on important US findings about the debilitating illness.

If you wish you can read more FACTS and INFORMATION here: http://www.blockbusterbooks.co.uk/1.html

Dr Blockbuster will continue to highlight the lack of closure on GWS after 18 years – HOW LONG MUST THIS NONSENSE CONTINUE?

ALVIN PRITCHARD. of XX
Mar 28, 2009 08:35:50 AM
GULF COVER UP SYNDROME.


Are we gulf vets going to take this lying down? OR, are we going to do something about it ? REMEMBER our governments are now laughing at us behind closed doors now that they have had there dirty work done for them! and they really don`t care a toss about any health issues of anybody. They are only interested in how to dodge and avoid the issue! The evidence is their attitude over the last 18 years on the subject ! my faith in you is TOTAL,—– God bless.

Darin of MD
Mar 27, 2009 12:32:02 PM
ditto


Join the club….there are thousands of us. Kidney’s failed and laundry list of probs. Fight the fight still.

Anne Wright of CA
Mar 25, 2009 23:24:07 PM


Cholinesterase inhibitor sensitivity

There are a number of genetic polymorphisms related to cholinesterase (BCHE and ACHE genes) that can make some people more susceptible to cholinesterase inhibitors than others.

Hermona Soreq and her colleagues have done the best work I have found on this. Chapter 4 of the book “Cholinesterases and Cholinesterase Inhibitors” By Ezio Giacobini covers this well (http://books.google.com/books?id=g87duHRuvDQC&pg=PA47).

At least some of these polymorphisms appear on the list of SNPs that places like 23andMe and deCODEme test for. I am very curious what it would show if the veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome were tested for the BCHE and ACHE related SNPs Dr. Soreq mentions, and how well those results would correlate with the findings of Dr. Haley’s imaging studies.

Also, if you are prone to sensitivity to cholinesterase inhibitors, stress and past exposure to cholinesterase inhibitors apparently can make you more sensitive, even to small doses, in the future. There are cholinesterase inhibitors in the food we eat — particularly nightshade vegetables (potato, tomato, peppers, and eggplant), and pesticide residue on non-organic produce. I have found that trying very hard to avoid eating foods that contain cholinesterase inhibitors a lot of symptoms similar to those described above eventually improve or even go away. It can take a while, since these toxins can persist a long time (weeks to months), but it can help a lot.

I wonder if trying to modify their diets to reduce exposure to food-borne cholinesterase inhibitors might also help veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome.

Chris Peterson of OK
Mar 25, 2009 15:20:32 PM


Gulf war

I am a 37yo veteran of the Gulf War. I served as a liaison for United States 142nd field artillery.I started suffering from headaches, sleeplessness, fatigue, rashes, oral ulcers, mood disturbances, GI problems, muscle stiffness and pain, burning semen, and other various unexplainable symptoms. Not knowing what was wrong with me or how to deal with it I self medicated with marijuana to deal with the chronic pain and sleeplessness. After a failed marriage and several jobs I rec’d a letter in 2000 from the secretary of defense. In his words “If you were with your unit from March 3rd – March 10th 1991 you may indeed have been exposed to low levels of chemical nerve agent for a brief period of no more than 3 days.There is no conclusive evidence to prove that any long term health effects can be caused by a brief low level exposure to chemical nerve agent.” I decided to go to the VA. I thought I was going to receive help, understanding, or treatment to improve my quality of life, instead, I got a bunch of pills thrown at me the pills did not seem to work so they tried something else after several scripts none of which helped even a little I lost faith in the doctors.After expressing my dissatisfaction with the results to the Dr I was directed to mental health where more scripts were given after saying this drug is not working I was told to take twice as much of the medication. I`m currently 80% service connected (= to a house payment & electric bill) it took 5 years to get that if not for my wife I would have given up totally. the VA is not going to HELP YOU IN ANY WAY to get compensation. Ive been told this by the Dr. Instead they are there to discredit any evidence you might have to support your claim. Basically if you don`t have a good Dr. of your own who will point the finger toward your military service as causing your ailments your screwed. The DAV also misplaced several of my documents at key times (just before decisions) which caused another denial or two which prolonged my process by 2 years. the DAV also changed the wording on my claim 2years into the process which ultimately cost me 2 years of back pay. Its up to you totally to present your case in such a way they can not deny you. If you can prove you were there and have the evidence you need and the ailments they are willing to pay for you will get what should have been handed to you. I am not working, my last job (dealing cards at a casino part time) I cant do.Sitting in one position for extended period is very painful as is anything requiring strength. Sleeping is all but impossible without drugs. 2 months after returning from war I took a PT test my normal 11min 2 mile run took 15 min I had to walk the last 1/4 mile, just could not take in enough air overall my test score was down 25%. I live in Oklahoma and my claim was only successful after getting my senator involved.I would be happy to talk to anyone who was there if I can help I will. I`m ashamed of my country’s use of service members

Michael Akullian of FL
Mar 25, 2009 06:07:43 AM


gulf war

I personally suffer chest pains headaches nausea gastro-intestinal shakes body pain involuntary multiple muscle twitching especially on left eye and side of face and body fatigue sleeplessness flue like symptoms respiratory and just generally physical and mental issues loss of memory mood and so on i suffer every day symptoms started one week after forced injections non FDA approved anthrax vaccine DEC 1990 Hahn AB Germany i got sick while in gulf war have combat medical record Jan 91. upon return may 91 ordered not to donate blood for contamination and gulf war illness and after ten year honorable air force career not allowed to finish my career or reenlist because of mandatory strength reduction and downsizing.after FDA shut down anthrax vaccine program at bio port Lansing Michigan I received letter from Miami VA hospital to participate in Persian gulf war registry program and got a physical and applied for benefits.produced Jan 91 combat medical record to VA st pete regional office but in my original denial they changed it to a may 95 VA hospital visit to discredit record also compensation doctors had policy to discredit gulf war illness and instead they diagnosed me with PTSD and i was on pain sleep and nerve meds for years and it almost killed me don`t take any now but this purpose driven medical agenda has made me worst off than before i tried to get help. St Pete regional board of VA appeals and us court of appeals have all denied me for benefits and one reason is because they say its pre existing or mental or my factual statements are of layman quality even though i was a respiratory tech and pharmacy tech for a home health care company.also retire Admiral Crowe got his buddy Clinton to restart anthrax vaccine program in 1997 after he purchased bio port for pennies on the dollar. crazy messed main stream Americans i wish i never got all those vaccines and pills and i wish i never served because most Americans and America are not worth the pain and illnesses i have on a daily basis for the last 18 years at least you would think i would get 100% compensation and back pay but the government would rather spend the money mis-diagnosing me and fighting me foe benefits. i have a new appeal at us court of appeals for veterans claims but don`t have much faith because that court is not part of VA and will not accept or change records or fix the purpose driven mistakes the denial boards and medical teams opinions have made over the years and at that court level its me verses the secretary of veterans affairs and his team of lawyers. tried many times to get help form my congress people in Florida but all they do is inquire status of my claim which i obviously already know. my career health and gainful lively hood have suffered and i consider myself damaged goods and thought it was best to post this reluctantly because it is humiliating and embarrassing but so is America.

ALVIN PRITCHARD of XX
Mar 25, 2009 00:13:16 AM


GULF COVER UP SYNDROME.

Alvin Pritchard was a Welsh Cavelry trooper during the 1st gulf war, and served with 1st THE QUEENS DRAGOON GUARDS. British army. He fought along side the 7th U.S. marine corps during op. desert shield. He now lives in Wales, U.K.

Another Gulf War Syndrome?

Burning trash on bases is sickening soldiers, but the Army refuses to extinguish the burn pits.

By Beth Hawkins

March/April 2010 Issue of Motherjones

Before her last deployment, 31-year-old Staff Sergeant Danielle Nienajadlo passed her Army physical with flying colors. So when she started having health problems several weeks after arriving at Balad Air Base in Iraq, no one knew what to make of her symptoms: headaches that kept her awake; unexplained bruises all over her body; an open sore on her back that wouldn’t heal; vomiting and weight loss. In July 2008, after three miserable months, Nienajadlo checked into the base emergency room with a 104-degree fever.

She was sent to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and learned she had been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia, a fast-progressing form of the disease. She told her doctors and her family she had felt fine until she started inhaling the oily black smoke that spewed out of the base’s open-air trash-burning facility day and night. At times, the plume contained dioxins, some of which can cause the kind of cancer Nienajadlo had.

“She breathed in this gunk,” says her mother, Lindsay Weidman. “She’d go back to the hooch at night to go to bed and cough up these black chunks.”

In the past 17 months, more than 500 veterans have contacted Disabled American Veterans (DAV), a national nonprofit serving vets, to report illnesses they blame on the burn pits. Throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, contractors—many of the burn pits are operated by companies like former Halliburton subsidiary KBR—have dumped hundreds of tons of refuse into giant open-air trenches, doused the piles with fuel, and left them to burn. The trash includes plastic, metal, asbestos, batteries, tires, unexploded ordnance, medical waste, even entire trucks. (The military now operates several actual incinerators and has made efforts to create recycling programs, but the majority of war-zone trash is still burned in pits.)

On Burn Pits Action Center, a website operated by the staff of Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.)—who learned of the problem via the reporting of Army Times writer Kelly Kennedy in 2008—GIs describe dumping rat poison, hydraulic fluid, and pressure-treated wood into the pits. “When the question was raised about what we were off-loading for burning, the answer was along the lines of ‘Don’t worry about it as the heat will burn up the bad stuff so it isn’t a threat,'” reported Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class John Wingfield, who served near Balad in 2004 and 2005.

Veterans’ groups worry that the smoke floods bases with a stew of carcinogens, toxins, and lung-clogging fine particles. An Army study released in early 2009 found that particulate matter at 15 sites exceeded both EPA and US military standards. Even short-term exposure could sicken—or kill—service members, the report warns. As early as 2006, an Air Force engineer stationed at Balad warned superiors in a memo that smoke from the burn pits presented “an acute health hazard” for service members. “It is amazing that the burn pit has been able to operate without restrictions over the past several years,” the engineer, Lt. Colonel Darrin Curtis, wrote. Military statistics also show a steep increase in respiratory problems in troops since the start of the Iraq War.

In a written statement, KBR told Mother Jones that it operates burn pits “pursuant to Army guidelines and regulations.” The military’s own air sampling has turned up dioxins, volatile organic compounds, heavy metals, and other potential hazards in the air at Balad. The Pentagon has insisted they were at levels that posed no significant threat—though last December, a top military health official acknowledged to the Salt Lake Tribune that smoke from the pits may cause long-term health problems. (Neither Pentagon officials nor the White House responded to requests for comment on this story.)

The government’s reluctance to acknowledge the potential hazard has frustrated veterans’ advocates, who remember how long it took for the Pentagon to recognize Gulf War Syndrome in the 1990s, and to acknowledge the health problems caused by aerial spraying during the Vietnam War. “We don’t want another Agent Orange,” says John L. Wilson, DAV’s assistant national legislative director. “Silence does not do any good.”

If the pits are harming troops and Iraqis, there’s no telling how many. Many cancers won’t reveal themselves for a decade or more, and many respiratory symptoms tend to be misdiagnosed as asthma. Like Nienajadlo, Air Force Reserve Lt. Colonel Michelle Franco, 48, had a clean bill of health when she shipped out to Balad three years ago. The 18-foot walls surrounding her quarters kept out mortar fire, but not the smoke: “You could smell it; you could taste it.” As a nurse, Franco suspected the “plume crud” was hazardous. She knew that in addition to amputated limbs from her medical facility, the base’s waste included hundreds of thousands of water bottles every week—and she knew burning plastic releases cancer-causing dioxins. After just five months at the base, Franco sustained permanent lung damage. She’s lucky, she says, that she kept asking questions when harried doctors handed her an inhaler. She expects her diagnosis—untreatable reactive airway dysfunction syndrome—to ultimately push her into retirement.

Many vets won’t realize that their illness might be service related, notes Franco. But official recognition is key to get them proper screening and benefits. Last fall, Rep. Bishop managed to pass legislation limiting the military’s freedom to burn waste and directing the Pentagon to do a study on the pits’ health effects. Given that this may take years, Bishop is also calling for an Agent Orange-like registry of those at risk.

Meanwhile a DC-based law firm, Burke LLC (which has also pursued claims for Abu Ghraib torture victims and Iraqi civilians killed by Blackwater guards), has filed suit against Halliburton and KBR on behalf of about 300 injured veterans and their survivors; the firm estimates that some 100,000 people have been exposed. “These troops were more injured by the smoke and the toxins than by combat,” says attorney Elizabeth Burke.

Staff Sergeant Nienajadlo died March 20, 2009, exactly 13 years from the day she enlisted. She left behind three children, ages 3, 8, and 10, and a husband who is also in the service. Before she fell ill, Nienajadlo confided to her mother that she was scared of serving in Iraq. But she worried about mortar attacks and roadside bombs—not the Army’s own trash.

French Finally Prove Gulf War Syndrome Caused by “Cocktail” Inoculations

by Joe Vialls

January 6th 1996

Edited January 12th 2003,Updated January 25th 003 by Jeff Schogol

Rather than help the media in its never-ending quest to lay misleading smoke screens around the true origins of Gulf War Syndrome, General Roquejoffre appears to have used his statement to finally isolate and expose the real villain behind the debilitating and sometimes lethal disease.

Many years ago before gaining access to the Internet, I wrote a report about the most likely causes of Gulf War Syndrome. The report slowly moved around the world by snail mail, and was eventually published in four small magazines. Then I forgot all about the report for a few years, because the nightmare symptoms being suffered by Gulf War veterans in America and Britain, seemed light years away from my sleepy little backwater in Western Australia. That was before George W. Bush decided to do the whole thing all over again, in his increasingly frantic and very public attempts to pillage Middle East oil for Wall Street. Though I am obviously powerless to prevent Bush from ruthlessly sacrificing American lives in the Iraqi desert, I can at least sound a warning designed to minimize the physical and psychological impact on servicemen before they leave for the Gulf, and after they hopefully return.

There is no doubt that the panic generated by the false “War on Terror” is already being used to coerce people into accepting “preventative medical treatment“, that in a more sane world they would instantly refuse. Most profitable by far for the pharmaceutical multinationals backing the Bush Dynasty, are inoculations forced onto service men and women by legislation. Taking the dreaded “Anthrax Shots” as an example, the manufacturer makes a net profit of $18.00 out of every single individual, a figure that has to be multiplied by 2.4 million to get a true feel for multinational profit margins. It is a harsh fact that the Anthrax vaccine being forcibly administered to service men and women today, is the same as that included in the deadly Gulf War “cocktail” inoculations of 1990-1991. This has no meaning whatever for politicians who habitually bend forward over a desk when their masters approach from behind, but it might have some meaning for you. In the event that the multinationals manage to spark a “civil emergency” somewhere near your own home, be advised that you too will be forced to accept exactly the same untested but hugely profitable vaccine as military personnel bound for the Persian Gulf.

The direct relationship between the Anthrax shots of today and the “cocktail” of yesterday is deeply troubling, and is the prime reason for reviving, editing, and adding to this 1995 report. You might find part of the text disturbing, which is probably a very good thing. It is difficult to protect your family from government-induced harm if you are not completely alert. “During late 1995, devastating new evidence on Gulf War Syndrome was released, providing undeniable hard scientific proof for those who have long suspected that Gulf veterans are suffering short and long-term effects of unproven anti-bacteriological warfare inoculations and anti-nerve gas tablets, forcibly administered by U.S. Army doctors in Saudi Arabia.

With thousands of U.S. veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome, it came as no surprise to learn in October 1995 that several hundred British veterans were suffering in the same way, with three to five new cases being reported every week. Like their U.S. counterparts, most were puzzled by the origins of the disease, which they initially attributed to oil-laden smoke in Kuwait, toxic dust from depleted uranium rounds fired by U.S. weapons, and possible contamination from expended Iraqi chemical shells in the area, fired before the Gulf War commenced.

In a startling break with tradition, one British military doctor stated that in her view, 99% of the problems could be sourced back to the anti-bacteriological warfare “Cocktail Inoculations“, and anti-nerve gas tablets forcibly administered to military personnel in the Gulf region at that time. In an October 1995 broadcast of the ITN TV World News from London, she further explained that all British military personnel had been provided with the same untested and unproven drugs as the Americans, from U.S. medical sources. To reinforce the point, the doctor explained that the number of British personnel suffering symptoms correlated exactly on a per capita basis with U.S. personnel. It was a controversial claim, but apparently lacking in substance.

Shattering confirmation came eleven hours later, when Australian Channel 10 television carried exactly the same story at 5 p.m., but with an extra piece tagged onto the end. The extra piece claimed that French military personnel in the Gulf region, numbering the same as the British contingent, had been prevented from taking the “cocktails” and tablets on the direct orders of the French Commander-in-Chief. The story claimed that since the end of the Gulf War, not a single member of the French military has suffered from Gulf War Syndrome, or reported any of its symptoms. One hour later at 6 p.m. when the other Australian television networks ran their news broadcasts, the awesome story with its stunning proof had vanished from sight. Nor was it reported in the Australian newspapers.

For any scientist or veteran, the fact that the French should be completely clear of Gulf War Syndrome while the Americans and British suffered huge numbers of cases verified on a direct per capita basis, has huge and horrifying implications. After all, the French ate the same food, drank the same water, breathed the same air and trudged through hundreds of miles of the same desert. They also fired similar weapons at similar targets. So what were the additional factors that made the French unique in their ability to completely withstand the deadly Gulf War Syndrome? The truth is there were none at all, save for the experimental American “cocktail” inoculations and nerve gas tablets. What the French had done, almost by accident, was provide hard scientific proof of the direct cause of Gulf War Syndrome. This proof took the form of its large 25,000-strong contingent of French servicemen participating n the Gulf War, who in all respects constituted a valid medical “control group”.

For the uninitiated, here is an example of how a “control group” might be used in medical trials: Let us say that the manufacturer of a new “chest hair” drug wants to run a clinical trial to check its efficiency, using 500,000 men. Out of this total, 475,000 [Americans and Brits] are given the real “chest hair” pill, while the remaining 25,000 [French] are used as a control group and given only a placebo, i.e. an identical looking sugar-coated pill with no active ingredients. If at the end of the trial all men with enhanced chest hair were found in the main group, with not a single case in the control group, the new “chest hair” drug would immediately be approved by medical authorities. It really is that simple. Applying the same process in reverse, proves in definitive medical terms that untested Anthrax and botulism potions kill far more servicemen than enemy gunfire.

In an attempt to confirm this vital though very short-lived Gulf War Syndrome data, the author contacted the French Military Attaché in Australia and inquired if it was correct that the French Commander-in-Chief forbade his own personnel the untested substances. The Military Attaché was happy to confirm this, and also confirmed that not one French soldier or airman has suffered since the end of the Gulf War. It seemed to be a subject of which he was very proud, and rightly so. Perhaps it is time for U.S. and British veterans to confirm the same points with their local French consulates, before taking a very hefty legal swing at their own governments.”

On 3rd October 1996, nine months after this report was first published in two small American magazines, and then brought to the attention of the White House, the prestigious New York Times suddenly added a new dimension [and thus a possible new cause for Gulf War Syndrome]. According to the newspaper, an Iraqi chemical weapons dump at Kamisiyah was bombed extensively by U.S. jets before the ground campaign, meaning soldiers could have been exposed before their assault. The New York Times did not attempt to explain why this news was being reported five years after the event, nor why it was suddenly so important to bring the matter to the attention of the American public.

Once again, affected veterans and the public settled down into a confused silence, their suspicions blunted by media-induced patriotic guilt. How dare they even imagine that caring American pharmaceutical multinationals would hurt them or their families, when all along the real culprit was obviously Saddam Hussein and his evil “weapons of mass destruction”? The Kamisiyah “link” to Gulf War Syndrome was ruthlessly exploited, with official Pentagon confirmation that the dump itself was finally destroyed on 4 March 1991 by the 37th Engineering Battalion, who “did not know” that nerve gas was stored there when they triggered the demolition charges. So, victims and public alike were coaxed into believing that American and other troops located downwind of the demolition, had been affected solely by “Iraqi” toxins.

It was truly brilliant media propaganda, but failed to take into account those incredibly annoying Frenchmen, who seemed to be everywhere in southern Iraq at the same time as the Americans and British. Proportionately speaking, the same number of “French Control Group” troops were present when Kamisiyah was bombed and finally demolished, but not one of them suffered or even reported any of the effects of “Gulf War Syndrome”. And before you ask, yes, the French did indeed trudge wearily through the same areas of southern Iraq littered with depleted uranium 238 as the Americans and British. But still there is absolutely no trace of Gulf War Syndrome in any French soldier.

It does not take a rocket scientist to work out where this report is heading. Just look at the hard facts and ignore the pathetic lobby, media, and academic hype. As already discussed, all coalition troops regardless of nationality shared the same air and water, they all walked or drove over the same terrain, and they all used similar weapons against similar targets. But what about external body protection? Did the French have vastly superior bio-warfare suits that somehow magically gave them “the edge” over American and British personnel? No, they did not. The bio-warfare suits worn by the French, came from exactly the same stock as those worn by the Americans and British. The only variables left at this point in the report, are the un-trialed “cocktail” inoculations and the nerve gas tablets.

Under heavy media pressure in late October 2000, the retired commander of French forces in the Gulf, General Michel Roquejoffre, admitted that his men were in fact ordered to take nerve gas tablets [pyridostigmine bromide] during the Gulf War, but only for four days when mistakenly believed to be under direct chemical attack. The General pointed out that this four days of intermittent French exposure to nerve gas tablets, contrasts sharply with their continuous use for months on end by American and British servicemen. However, General Roquejoffre emphasized that at no time did he allow any French serviceman to receive the highly controversial un-trialed American “cocktail” inoculation.

Rather than help the media in its never-ending quest to lay misleading smoke screens around the true origins of Gulf War Syndrome, General Roquejoffre appears to have used his statement to finally isolate and expose the real villain behind the debilitating and sometimes lethal disease. Having “admitted” that some of his troops took the nerve gas tablets during the Gulf War, General Roquejoffre has wittingly or unwittingly removed the nerve gas tablet variable, leaving only the lethal American “cocktail” inoculation, which included the untested Anthrax vaccine being irresponsibly peddled today by assorted western politicians, as the sole and scientifically proven cause of Gulf War Syndrome.

British Servicemen Throw Deadly Anthrax Vaccine Overboard!

January 25th 2003 Up-Date

On January 4th 2003 a confidential copy of my updated report on the single cause of Gulf War Syndrome was sent directly to a number of military computer servers in America, Britain and Australia. With servicemen already being ordered to submit to a debilitating or lethal dose of un-trialed and unproven Anthrax “vaccine” directly linked to GWS, it seemed wise to ensure that they saw the work before it was officially posted on the Internet. Web sites can be attacked all too easily, and a number of mine have been totally destroyed in the last six months.

Not long after Prime Minister Tony Blair arrogantly waved goodbye to 30,000 British servicemen departing England for the Persian Gulf aboard a fleet of Navy vessels, locals in Dorset and Devon started reporting a very strange phenomenon. Thousands of [unused] vials of Anthrax Vaccine started washing up on their beaches. Some locals started panicking, thinking that perhaps they were being attacked by a country or countries known to have vast stockpiles of this ruthless killer – most notably America and Israel. But their heart rates came down again when Health Department officials visited the areas and explained the thousands of vials on the beaches were in fact “cures in bottles”. Jim Moore, a spokesman for the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association (NGVFA), said his organization has no conclusive proof that the vaccine vials that washed up in Dorset, southern England, were thrown overboard. But Moore noted that the circumstances surrounding the vaccine find are suspicious.

“For anything to be accidentally washed overboard on an aircraft carrier is highly unusual,” he said. “This gives us cause for concern and there are a lot of questions that need to be asked.” The organization said it has heard anecdotal evidence of mistiming of vaccines from current service personnel. The NGVFA believes that improperly administered vaccines might be one of the causes behind “Gulf War Syndrome“, a mysterious collection of symptoms that is thought to afflict tens of thousands of veterans in Britain and the United States. “People say you accept the risks when you sign up to join the forces,” Moore said. “That’s true, but the risk you accept is one of an enemy bullet or a landmine. You don’t accept the risk of being a guinea pig for a vaccine, all the mistakes made in the Gulf War are being made again.”

A Ministry of Defense spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that an internal investigation into the vaccine find was underway. “We wouldn’t like to speculate on where the vaccine might have come from at this stage,” she said. “There has been a large amount of speculation in the press and this isn’t helpful. The investigation will uncover the source of the vaccine.” Peering judiciously behind the official veil, of course reveals that the only sources for the thousands of “shipwrecked” Anthrax vaccine vials were the various naval vessels that had earlier sailed reluctantly for the Persian Gulf on direct political orders. So the British servicemen have found a way to neutralize the second most deadly danger to their lives. Now all they have to do, is to figure out a way to neutralize the most clear and present danger ever to threaten their families and themselves: Prime Minister Tony Blair