Ministers order new tests into Gulf War illness
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Your support makes all the difference.Sufferers of Gulf War syndrome received a boost last night when defence ministers announced a new plan to tackle the problem.
In what constitutes a U-turn by the Ministry of Defence under its new Labour masters, "substantial" new resources will be invested in extra research to discover what lies behind the illness of thousands of British and American servicemen. In a change from previous practice, all research and findings will be carried out in an open and accountable way.
Announcing the changes, the Armed Forces minister, John Reid, said: "We have an obligation to investigate sympathetically and thoroughly any illness suffered by those who have served their country and to provide all the resources necessary to treat them.
"And we must ensure we have their trust by being open and honest in all dealings with them."
As a first step, Gulf War veterans' representatives will be invited to the MoD to meet ministers and officials to discuss the problem. They will also be consulted over future courses of action.
A prime aim of the new research will be to examine possible side-effects caused by the vaccinations and drugs given to servicemen as protection against Iraqi chemical and biological weapons during the l991 war. It will be carried out in addition to research on exposure to organophosphate pesticides and chemical weapons.
Additional resources will also be devoted to clearing a backlog of veterans still awaiting medical examination. Around a thousand have been examined by the ministry's medical team so far.
The resultant findings will be used to compare the health of Gulf veterans with that of military personnel who did not serve in the Kuwait theatre. Former and serving troops are being enticed to fill in complex questionnaires with the offer of putting their names into a pounds 1,000 draw.
Larry Cammock, a spokesman for the Gulf War Veterans' Association, said: "This is very welcome news. It is great that we are at last going to get some input and some sense. It is appalling that it has taken this long. We have lost a lot of lads waiting for the MoD to take this seriously."
There had been speculation that the Government would launch an inquiry into how Dr Reid's predecessor, Nicholas Soames, came to be "misled" by officials and military medical staff. However, there is a constitutional rule that a new administration may not investigate the internal workings of a previous administration's business. The best Dr Reid can hope for on this question, according to a former MoD civil servant yesterday, is something on the lines of "what I think may have happened is ..."
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