http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020123/sc/health_gulfwar_dc_1.html
Wednesday January 23 3:48 PM ET
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than a decade after the Gulf War (news
- web
sites), the U.S. government launched a fresh initiative on Wednesday aimed
at getting to the bottom of the mysterious illnesses suffered by an estimated
one in seven veterans of that conflict.
The Bush administration announced the formation within the Department of
Veterans Affairs (news
- web
sites) of a 12-member advisory committee charged with sifting through
medical research on so-called Gulf War syndrome, some of which has been all but
ignored by the government until now.
The committee includes critics of past government efforts, including Dr.
Robert Haley, chief epidemiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern
Medical Center in Dallas.
The panel will not conduct or fund research. It will review existing work
and make recommendations to Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi about
areas where more needs to be done and promote research that may lead to
improved diagnosis and treatment of sick Gulf War veterans.
``There's been a lot of good work done in the past on this issue,'' said
James Binns Jr., a Vietnam War veteran and former chairman of Parallel Design
Inc., which makes medical devices and was acquired by General Electric in 2000.
``What's been missing has been a concentrated effort to pull it together and
to understand it and to follow up on it,'' he said.
Binns said the government in the past has treated Desert Storm veterans
afflicted with unexplained ailments, perhaps linked to their service in the
1991 war to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi forces, as if their illnesses were all
in their minds.
``These, by and large, are not a group of men and women who were prone to
illness or prone to being hypochondriacs before they went into military
service,'' Binns said.
``There's substantial evidence that this problem is real. There are probable
causes, and even are promising avenues for treatment. And I wonder why the
attitude hasn't been, 'Let's jump on this. Let's pursue these encouraging bits
of research.' I say that's where I think we can make a difference.''
Many of the nearly 700,000 U.S. Desert Storm troops say they suffer from
conditions including pain in the muscles and joints, fatigue, nausea and
balance problems. Their children also appear to have a higher risk of birth
defects.
Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Leo Mackay said his department ``is
committed to investigating all possible causes and treatments for Gulf War
illnesses.'' He noted that the panel was made up of people with ``diverse
viewpoints,'' including members of the medical and scientific communities and
activists on the Gulf War syndrome issue.
HALEY FOUND BRAIN ABNORMALITIES
Haley's research, finding subtle brain abnormalities among some ailing Gulf
War veterans, was among the first to indicate a causal relationship between
Gulf War service and the syndrome. His work got off the ground because of
funding by Texas billionaire and maverick politician H. Ross Perot.
Congress mandated the creation of the panel in 1998, but nothing was done in
the final two years of the Clinton administration before President Bush (news
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sites) took office a year ago.
Perot said: ``The Clinton administration had one mission, and that was to
ignore it because it would cost money.''
The Department of Veterans Affairs last month said Gulf War military personnel
apparently are nearly twice as likely as other veterans to develop the fatal
neurological ailment amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, also known as Lou
Gehrig's disease (news
- web
sites). The department said it would give additional benefits and
compensation to veterans who served in the Gulf region during the war and later
came down with ALS.
This was the first official acknowledgment of a scientific link between Gulf
War service and a specific disease.
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