Vets urge more action on Gulf War syndrome

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Jul 30, 2007 6:43:00 EDT

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A group of Persian Gulf War veterans told House lawmakers they feel overlooked with all of the focus on benefits and treatment for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some veterans of Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 war to force Iraqi invaders out of Kuwait, have given up on the Department of Veterans Affairs and are seeking private care or not seeking treatment for what they believe are war-related
disabilities.

I have heard from countless other Gulf War veterans who, like many Vietnam veterans before them, have stopped going to the VA or have simply given up and have done their best to adapt to the substantial lifestyle changes required by their disabilities, Army veteran Anthony Hardie said. Hardie, who continues to suffer from the so-called Kuwait cough that started after he breathed in the smoke from oil fires, was one of the witnesses at a July 25 hearing of the House Veterans™ Affairs health subcommittee. He said VA is still seeing Gulf War veterans with undiagnosed problems, but being seen is not the same thing as being treated. Retired Air Force Reserve Maj. Montra Denise Nichols, a registered nurse who said she saw the beginning signs of the mysterious Gulf War syndrome while deployed with her aeromedical evacuation group along the border between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, also said veterans are being overlooked. VA has promised to provide research, but treatment, support groups, a patient registry and sha ring of the latest research among doctors have declined to the point that many veterans feel responsible for educating their own doctors. Nichols called it unacceptable for ill patients who look to their doctors for relief to have to bring in stacks of research that shows the direction the physicians should be examining. Another Gulf War veteran, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Mikolajcik, said the failure to do more could end up hurting new generations of veterans. Mikolajcik was diagnosed in 2003 with the usually fatal amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, known as Lou Gerhrigs™ disease. He said a 2001 study shows Gulf War veterans are twice as likely to have ALS as the general population, and a 2005 study found all veterans, dating back to World War II, have an ALS rate 1.6 times that of the general population. The cause and possible link to military service is
unknown, he conceded, but he urged Congress to do more in terms of research and treatment. There will be young men, women and families celebrating a return from Iraq and Afghanistan alive who have no idea that they may soon be facing a certain death from ALS, he said. Dr. Lawrence Deyton, VAs chief public health and environmental hazards officer, said VA is researching ALS and also looking for a possible treatment. The chairman of VAs advisory committee on research into Gulf War-related disabilities says vets who think they are not getting enough attention may be right.

Gulf War illnesses remain a major unmet veterans health problem, said James Binns, chairman of the VA research advisory committee on Gulf War veterans illnesses. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been appropriated to address the health problems of currently returning veterans, and rightly so, Binns said. But it is now time, in fact long past time, to address the serious heal the problems of 175,000 veterans of the last war who remain ill as a result of their service.

By ROSALIE WESTENSKOW
UPI Correspondent
WASHINGTON, July 26 (UPI) -- Many U.S. _Gulf War_
(http://www.upi.com/Health_Business/Analysis/2007/07/27/analysis_gulf_war_illness_still_incurable/1662/#)
veterans continue to suffer from mysterious illnesses more than 16 years after the conflict ended, several witnesses testified this week before a congressional committee.

"One in four of those who served -- 175,000 veterans -- remains seriously ill," James Binns, chairman of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, said at a House of Representat ives Health subcommittee hearing.

Gulf War syndrome or illness manifests itself through a plethora of symptoms, including dizziness, fatigue, diarrhea and other gastrointestinal problems, severe headaches, respiratory problems, stiffness and difficulty
concentrating. Veterans began displaying these symptoms before the war ended in 1991, but a decade and a half later, many physicians feel unsure of how to treat these patients

"There remains no effective treatment," Binns said. In the absence of any cure, many doctors resort to treating each individual symptom with different medications, such as sleeping pills and diarrhea medication, said Meryl Nass from Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor, Maine, who has conducted a specialty clinic to treat patients with Gulf War syndrome for eight years.

"It's a piecemeal approach," Nass said at the hearing. "You can improve their functioning maybe 30 or 40 percent , but they certainly don't get cured." One of the difficulties in treating the illness lies in general confusion over the exact causes of the illness and a lack of effective research on treatments, witnesses said. Although research has not proven definitive causes, the high level of toxins military personnel were exposed to probably caused most of the damage, said Lea Steele, scientific director of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses. "The most consistent and extensive amount of available evidence implicates a group of chemicals to which veterans were exposed that can have toxic effects on the brain," Steele said. "These chemicals include pills -- NAPP pills or pyridostigmine -- given to protect troops from the effects of nerve agents, excessive use of pesticides and low levels of nerve gas."

Other toxins include smoke from more than 600 burning Kuwaiti oil wells, military vaccines and low-l evel doses of chemical weapons, Steele said.

While the symptoms of Gulf War syndrome overlap with those of many other illnesses, they manifest themselves much more heavily in Gulf War veterans than those from other eras, suggesting something specific in the Gulf War triggered this new syndrome, Steele said.

"It's not what we see in the general population and it's not what we see in any other veterans group this age," she said. This hodgepodge of health problems seen in Gulf War veterans is not simply a manifestation of psychological problems either, Steele said. "Comprehensive studies have found no connection between Gulf War illness and combat experiences in the war," she said. "This stands to reason since, in contrast to current deployments, severe stress and trauma were relatively uncommon in the 1991 Gulf War."

The war itself lasted for less than six months, with only four days of ground combat.

The $260 million spent on Gulf War illness research by the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs has resulted in few breakthroughs, Nass said. One reason for this lies in an a focus on psychiatric causes, instead of toxins or vaccines and research that did look at these factors often had faulty methodology, leading to useless results, she said. "Failed research does not happen by itself," Nass said.

In many studies, the wrong questions were asked, dubious research methods were used or sample sizes were too small to yield statistically significant data.

Much of this research resulted from an effort to discount veterans' claims that their sickness resulted from their military service, said Anthony Hardie, legislative chair and national treasurer for Veterans of Modern Warfare, a veterans advocacy organization.

"Years were squandered disputing whether Gulf War veterans were really ill, stud ying stress (and) reporting that what was wrong with Gulf War veterans was the same as after every war," Hardie said. "An incredible amount of effort was put into disproving the claims of countless veterans testifying before _Congress_
(http://www.upi.com/Health_Business/Analysis/2007/07/27/analysis_gulf_war_illness_still_incurable/1662/#) about chemical and other exposures." However, Veterans Affairs officials said the department has continuously worked to respond to the unique symptoms of Gulf War veterans. "Even before the 1991 Gulf War ceasefire, VA had concerns that returning veterans might have certain unique health problems, including respiratory effects from expo sure to the intense oil fire smoke," said Lawrence Deyton, chief public health and environmental hazards officer for the Veterans Health Administration. "VA quickly established a clinical registry to screen for this possibility."

But the data collected from the registry does not prove that Gulf War veterans suffer from any unique illness, Deyton said. "After 15 years, the principal finding from VA's systematic clinical registry examination of about 14 percent of 1991 Gulf War veterans is that they are suffering from a wide variety of common, recognized illnesses," he said. "However, no new or unique syndrome has been identified."

The department did ask Congress for the authority to provide disability coverage, though, to veterans with difficult-to diagnose or undiagnosed illnesses who claimed the problem stemmed from military service.

"This statute as amended authorizes VA to pay compensation for disabilities that cannot be diagnosed as a specific disease or injury, or for certain illnesses with unknown cause including chronic fatigue syndrome ... and irritable bowel syndrome," Deyton said.

However, the government should take greater responsibility for conducting research on how to treat these veterans, said Brig. Gen. Thomas Mikolajcik, a Gulf War veteran diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease, a rare condition that causes a progressive degeneration of the nerve cells in the brain and occurs twice as much in military personnel as among the rest of the population and two times as often among Gulf War veterans as other veterans.

"Establish a congressionally directed ALS Task Force with specific milestones and a time line," Mikolajcik said. _Del.icio.us_ (http://del.icio.us/post) | _Digg it_ (http://digg.com/submit) | _RSS_ (http://www.upi.com/rss/Health_Business/Analysis/)

VA: 1991 Gulf War vets must not be ignored By _Rick Maze_ (mailto:[email protected]?subject=Question from ArmyTimes.com reader) - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jul 27, 2007 9:36:00 EDT

Veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War are not getting the treatment they deserve from the federal government, according to the chairman of a Veterans Affairs Department research advisory committee. Gulf War illnesses remain a major unmet veterans health problem, said James Binns, chairman of the VAs research advisory committee on Gulf War veterans illnesses. He testified along with several Gulf War veterans before the House Veterans Affairs health subcommittee. Binns said Gulf War veterans who feel they are being ignored may have a point. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been appropriated to address the health problems of currently returning veterans, and rightly so, he said. But it is now time, in fact long past time, to address the serious health problems of 175,000 veterans of the last war who remain ill as a result of their service. Sixteen years after Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm, Binns said serious health problems continue, and most of the money spent on research has been wasted. One in four of those who served 175,000 veterans remain seriously ill, and there are currently no effective treatments, he said, referring to the multi-symptom illness commonly known as Gulf War syndrome. About $300 million has been spent on research, but much of that research has focused on whether illnesses were the result of psychological stress, he said. Very little money was invested in treatment research, Binns said. Lea Steele, the research advisory committees scientific director, said studies have found no link between combat stress and Gulf War illnesses and, more troubling, studies have found that those suffering are not getting better. Few veterans with Gulf War illnesses have recovered or even substantially improved over time, Steele said. As a result, many Gulf War veterans have been sick for as long as 16 years. Army veteran Anthony Hardie, who says he continues to suffer from the so-called Kuwait cough that started after he breathed in the smoke from oil fires during the Gulf War, said many veterans are giving up on VA. I have heard from countless other Gulf War veterans who, like many Vietnam veterans before them, have stopped going to the VA or have simply given up and have done their best to adapt to the substantial lifestyle changes required by their disabilities, Hardie said. Hardie said VA is still seeing Gulf War veterans who have undiagnosed problems, but being seen is not the same thing as being treated.

Subcommittee on Health Hearing Gulf War Exposures
DATE/TIME/PLACE: July 26
(Thursday) 10:00 am, 334 Cannon
Witness List | Audio Coverage