By Gary Null Ph.D.

Strong Insecticides Used

Hom and Haley's studies, mentioned earlier in this paper as well as others done recently with Duke University scientists, are finally demonstrating that chemical synergy, rather than combat stress, is the underlying factor in Gulf War syndrome. All of the the toxins to which troops were exposed show the potential for synergistic damage is extensive and hard to fully comprehend: ipesticides, insect repellent, sometimes used in the form of flea collars worn by soldiers, DEET, nerve gas, anti-nerve-gas medication, experimental vaccines, burning-oil-well fumes, and depleted uranium.

The use of insect repellent is a mundane factor that nevertheless ought not to be overlooked when considering synergistic damage. Stars and Stripes reports that while the insecticide DEET was deemed safe in concentrations of less than 31 percent, Desert Storm participants received DEET in strengths between 33 and 75 percent. The combination of DEET and PB--those pyridostigmine bromide (PEER-id-oh-stig-meen BRO-myde) anti-nerve gas pills that servicemen and women were ordered to take, is being studied at the University of Florida at Gainesville for their combined effects. Also, the insecticide permethrin, sprayed on soldiers' uniforms, was used in strengths exceeding safe levels, and may have exacerbated the effects of other substances.

Unfortunately, no one had studied what happens when an insecticide is sprayed on soldier's uniforms with strengths far exceeding the safe levels and then that soldier is exposed to some other contaminant.

In the 1994 senate hearing, Rockefeller went on to say that "the use of investigational drugs in the Persian Gulf is especially troublesome. The Pentagon did studies of one of these drugs, pyridostigmine, in a cautious way before the war. The study excluded anyone who might be harmed by the drug. After protecting a few hundred men who volunteered for these studies, they threw caution to the winds, ignoring all warnings of potential harm, and gave these drugs to hundreds of thousands of soldiers with virtually no warnings and no safeguards.

"If that wasn't bad enough," Rockefeller said, "they administered these drugs and vaccines in such a way that there was a very good chance they wouldn't have even worked for the intended purpose. They would not nave protected most soldiers from chemical or biological warfare. These are strong statements, and I don't make them lightly."

The news gets worse in that the giving of the pyridostigmine bromide was probably a total mistake. That's because while pyridostigmine is supposed to be effective against a particular chemical agent, soman, it may make individuals more vulnerable to other nerve agents, such as one called sarin. The only verified report of chemical weapons in the gulf concluded that it was this later agent, sarin that was present. In other words, experimental pills were given for the wrong agent.

In a sense this has the terrible appearance of history repeating itself. All Vietnam veterans know by now that Agent Orange, which contained a known toxin -- defoliant dioxin -- was widely used in deforestation efforts in Vietnam. That poison became a deadly time bomb ticking away in the bodies of up to a million GIs, who were later denied recognition of their problem. Not to mention their inadequate treatment and lack of benefits.

There seems to be a pattern in the military's misuse of our fellow citizens. Neil Tetzlaff, who was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force during the Gulf War, told the May 6 Senate hearing about his health problems, which began even before he arrived in Saudi Arabia: "While being mobilized, I was issued a seven-day supply of pyridostigmine-boromide pills and was told to start taking them on an eight-hour schedule, which I did. The package contained no warnings. For me, this was a chronic overdose of pyridostigmine. Both my immediate physical and mental symptoms corroborate this fact.

"On the plane ride to Saudi and during my first day in-country," Tetzlaff said, "I was nauseated and vomited. I attributed the sickness to the plane ride and tenseness of the situation. On my second day there, I vomited again and felt different. I attributed the sickness to something I'd eaten. On the third day, I was extremely nauseated and vomited many times. I sought out the Doctor and discussed my illness with him. We dismissed it as something I had eaten at the Saudi canteen. On my fourth day there, I vomited violently, the worst ever of my life, and was acting a bit off center and muddled.... On the morning of the seventh day, I vomited about a quart of blood.

"Since taking pyridostigmine while deployed for Desert Shield, I have been suffering moderate, severe, and intolerable pain, fatigue easily, and lately have developed one heck of a palsy. I've lost my ability to speak because I can't recall words, have extreme problems with my short-term memory, and I had a dramatic change in my olfactory system. The last three and a half years have been extremely difficult on my family and me. This brief description by no means enumerates the mental and physical disabilities I've had to overcome.

Tetzlaff reported that "military medical doctors routinely returned soldiers taking pyridostigmine to duty, even though they were suffering overdose symptoms such as vomiting, increased urinary frequency, and headaches, without telling the soldiers to stop taking pyridostigmine." 

I knew then I was in deep trouble," Tetzlaff continued, "and I headed straight for the doctor. Shortly thereafter I began to lose consciousness, and the doctor started an I.V. After examining me in the Taif clinic, the doctor commandeered a C130 and air-evacuated me to the Royal Saudi Hospital in Riyadh....

'As the situation stands now," Tetzlaff went on, "the disabling effects of pyridostigmine are not known and are not being investigated, even though the drug was used during Desert Storm on an experimental basis. I am caught in the same dilemma as the victims of Crossroads and Agent Orange. During the nuclear tests in the forties, radiation wasn't considered hazardous, and during Vietnam, Agent Orange wasn't considered harmful. Pyridostigmine, taken at the dose of 30 milligrams every eight hours, is considered to be non-injurious to humans by the D.O.D."

He also said that in November 1990 some pharmacists deployed to the gulf refused to issue the experimental pills to soldiers without getting consent forms from them. "They also raised a number of moral, ethical, and legal issues." Tetzlaff asked, "Was the United States guilty of doing exactly the same thing the Nazis did in World War II?" This forced D.O.D. to get F.D.A.'s approval to issue the experimental medicine to soldiers without individual consent. Even with F.D.A.'s approval, there is still a great deal of discussion in medical and pharmaceutical literature as to whether D.O.D. violated the Geneva Accords."

The Senate hearing at which Tetzlaff Spoke was the culmination of an intensive six-month investigation that, Senator Rockefeller said, "showed a reckless disregard that shocked me, and I think that will shock all Americans."

Dr. Callender who was at the same hearing in 1994 explained that while pyridostigmine bromide (P.Y.B.) helps counter nerve poison, it's also one of a class of agents that are essentially pesticides or nerve poisons themselves. He said that while preliminary research done on P.Y.B. by the Department of Defense excluded people with a susceptibility to the substance, once combat personnel were getting the drug, no such screenings for susceptibility were done. Also, women were never included in those studies, despite the fact that they were in combat areas. So, said Callender, "these facts make the entire concept of the safety of P.Y.B. as being promoted by the military untenable. If only a few percent of the soldiers are susceptible, then many tens of thousands of individuals are at risk for serious side effects."

Other problems with the preliminary research on P.Y.B., Callender added, included the fact that the tremendous variability between individuals of different genetic makeup was never taken into account. This led to problems for many of the soldiers who had to take the drug. "Some of the patients that I interviewed that had the worst side effects from P.Y.B. also had personal histories and familial histories of an intolerance to many medications, therefore suggesting a genetic, biochemical susceptibility," Callender stated. "This history was ignored, as well as complaints of adverse reactions following each time the P.Y.B. was taken."

Here's some of what Zuckerman and Olson had to say about pyridostigmine (Ph.D.'s Diana Zuckerman and Patricia Olson conducted an investigation for Senator Rockefeller in conjunction with the May hearing): "Pyridostigmine bromide is a chemical which is believed to enhance the effectiveness of established drugs for the treatment of nerve-agent poisoning. Pyridostigmine is also a nerve agent itself.... In recent studies, animals given pyridostigmine followed by two antidotes (atropine and 2-PAM) were more likely to survive exposure to a nerve agent called soman. However, pyridostigmine pretreatment may make individuals more vulnerable to other nerve agents, such as sarin. The D.O.D. scientists concluded that pyridostigmine should only be used when the chemical-warfare threat is soman. Iraq was believed to have both soman and sarin, but by 1994 the only verified report of chemical weapons in the Gulf War concluded that sarin was present.

Zuckerman and Olson also brought up the possibility of synergistic effects in relation to P.Y.B. "Last year," they reported, "Dr. James Fox, a scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, conducted research on cockroaches that could have important implications for Persian Gulf War veterans. He found that when used in combination with pyridostigmine, a common pesticide called Deet became ten times as toxic as when used alone. Deet and many other pesticides were widely used in the Gulf War. If individuals who took pyridostigmine pills became more vulnerable to pesticides ... this could explain the serious neurological symptoms experienced by so many Gulf War veterans."

According to Zuckerman and Olson, initially the Department of Defense assured the F.D.A. that investigational drugs would be administered to soldiers on a voluntary basis, information on the products would be provided, and soldiers would be monitored for ill effects. As it turned out, though, none of these conditions were met. The Defense Department got the F. D.A. to grant them waivers from informed-consent regulations for the use of pyridostigmine and botulinum-toxoid vaccine. As a result, many gulf veterans were not told what vaccine they were being given or what the risks were. Zuckerman and Olson informed Rockefeller that "many report that they were told not to tell medical personnel that they had received a vaccination, even if the vaccination caused pain or swelling. No record of the vaccine was available in medical records. As a result, physicians who were concerned about any local or systemic reactions often had no information about the possible causes of those symptoms. Veterans who claim they were harmed by the vaccines or pyridostigmine frequently have no proof that they were vaccinated or took the pills, or that they had an adverse reaction."

Let's put this into perspective for a moment. Let's say that you're a vet and you're having problems. You go to your doctor and you say, 'doctor I took these PB pills. I had these vaccines. I was exposed to this DEET pesticide, and I now have nightmares, night sweats. I have skin rashes that bleed. I cannot sleep. I'm hallucinating.' The doctor says, 'well I've looked in your medical records, and there is no vaccines, no pills that you took.' The vet says, 'but I did and all of us did.' The doctor says, 'I don't see any infection.' So then the doctor calls the Veteran's Administration or Defense Department, and says, 'I've got a vet here.' They say, 'it's all post traumatic stress syndrome. It's all psychiatric disorders. Give them a tranquilizer.'

Should we at this point begin to ask ourselves did the Department of Defense and the Pentagon with intentionally delete all vaccine files they could and dissuade individuals from speaking about what they had been exposed to? That's what we may be facing, and that is what the vets are facing. It's an extreme situation.

One of the veterans who knows about this situation firsthand is the Reverend Dr. Barry Walker, who served as a chaplain in Saudi Arabia and ultimately in Iraq and Kuwait. Here's some of what he told the Senate committee hearing: "On January 16, 1991, I received the first of two shots of a vaccine, but we were not told exactly what it was. We were later told that the purpose of the vaccine was to protect us; rumor was that it was for protection against anthrax. Also in January, after the first Scud was launched, we were ordered to start taking some pills, although we were not told exactly what they were, either. All we were told was that the pills would protect us against chemical and biological weapons. We were told to take the pills and not given a choice, though some soldiers did not take them. I was expected to be an example to others, so I took them at first. I later learned that these pills were pyridostigmine."

Various laboratory studies examined the various endocrine, immunological, neurological, and systemic effects of pyridostigmine:

A study suggested that in addition to severe symptoms, the neurotoxin PB may disrupt certain neurotransmitters (vasoactive neuropeptides) important in brain body regulation, hormonal function, and cellular protection. Treatment against the effect of PB includes "options such as thymectomy, corticosteroids, plasma exchange, anti-idiotype antibodies and receptor genomic expression reactivation/suppression may be considered."

If you put someone on corticosteroids, you're absolutely going to destroy their immune system. So if their immune system is already under attack from PB, and then you give them corticosteroids, you could kill the person. But that's what the government was doing.

In studies involving the hormonal regulation of the thyroid, PB was shown not to be implicated in some of the thyroid pathways. However, in these studies, much smaller amounts of PB were administered than the vets received before and during deployment.

One article suggests that treatment options may use the myasthenia gravis model. A study on mal-formed acetylcholine receptors in children resulting in myasthenia gravis like symptoms, suggests that acetylcholine receptors may also be involved in Gulf War Illness. Surprisingly, the culprit "pyridostigmine may prove to have a role in therapy."

A year 2001 paper done in South Carolina examined the effects of pesticides and other toxins, which to which vets had been exposed. This study examined various immune markers on rodents' exposure to jet fuel, DEET, and Pyridostigmine Bromide. The study found that the use of these agents " not profoundly alter many immunological endpoints, except for "the PFC and DTH response", which are standard lab assays which study general immune response with introduction of outside antigens.

The fact that the pesticides and jet fuel did not affect the majority of laboratory immune markers in this study, however, does not mean that there are not more direct pathways to illness from these external agents:

In an interesting article written by the University of Texas Institute for Health Science suggested that a new paradigm for illness ought to be posited for those suffering from Gulf War Illness, characterized initially by a primary exposure to a toxin, which brings down a person's natural resistance and tolerance, and then subsequent small amounts of the toxin will bring on the original acute symptoms of exposure. They called this illness, or new paradigm, "Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance" ("TILT"). The article suggests that in addition to the numerous physical symptoms mentioned several times earlier in this article, withdrawal and cravings experienced by sufferers of this syndrome indicated that neurotransmitters may be involved.

Similarly, a review of the literature in Nottingham England in 2001 compares the immunological literature on Gulf war patients, and the authors feel that Gulf War Illness is largely one of association, where an environmental trigger, such as gasoline, experienced at home, could bring back a 'sickness response', originally triggered by toxic environmental factors in the Gulf. This 'sickness response' is largely mediated immunologically and neurologically, as opposed the traditional allergy response that originally was suspected.

A 1998 study in Dallas of Naval reserve troops studied the correspondence between reported symptoms and chemical exposure. The study showed that exposure to 'sublethal' doses of toxins caused delayed the onset of effects. Effects were measured with various bodily, visual, and auditory standard neurological tests. Similar animal studies at Duke University confirmed the findings.

One animal study suggested that different stressors caused differing bodily responses after exposure to Pyridosigmine:

In rodent studies, a mixed response to the effects of Pyridosigmine on brain function under various environmental stressors was examined. Although PB was shown to affect mice after forced swimming, guinea pigs receiving PB and forced to undergo heat stressors did not have brain effects from the PB administration.

So let's put this in perspective for a moment. Some Gulf vets were not exposed to anything other than the original vaccine. Some didn't even go to the Gulf theater. They were right in the United States during the whole Gulf War, but they ended up with Gulf War Syndrome. Their symptoms are generally chronic fatigue syndrome, swelling of the legs, night sweats, and nightmares. Now when many of the Gulf War vets went over and took the PB tablets, they not only had the same symptoms as the others that did not take the PB tablets, but then they had skin lesions. They had pneumonia like conditions. They had all forms of fungus that would not go away.

Then when you see that someone was exposed to a biological nerve gas that exploded in the scud missiles, then they had another series of symptoms. So depending upon how many different things you were exposed to would determine how extensive your illnesses would be. We can now see this. I personally worked with some Gulf War vets, and I'm working with one right now who was exposed to everything and was virtually debilitated. Couldn't function, and now through a holistic protocol, the person is back on his feet. 

In addition to the effects of Pyridostigmine Bromide on the neural pathways, PB is also thought to have an involvement in the reproductive system as well:

Rodents were used to test possible reproductive effects of toxic chemical exposure. "Testicular damage was significantly augmented when … animals were further exposed to a combination of chemicals and stress." Tests noted particular effects were focused on sperm production.

Direct hormonal suppression, however, may not be the only involvement with the cause of Gulf War Illness on the hormonal system:

A 2004 article in Germany points out that co-infection with Mycoplasma fermentans (which we have seen in other articles on Gulf war Illness) is a common occurrence.

Again, how did they get the mycoplasma? Dr. Garth Nicolson believes it came in the vaccines as an experimental adjuvant. 

Supporting the idea that bacterial infection can lead to tiredness and fatigue is the following: A year 2004 study in Germany discusses the link between bacterial infection with (Chlamydia) and (prostaglandin E2 production) with chronically inflamed states. (Chlamidophylia) Infection is known previously to cause chronic inflammation, which can lead to tiredness, reduced thyroid function, heart disease, and diabetes. 

So, once you put a vaccine into someone's body and you have weaponized a mycoplasma, and now you have all these vets who are chronically fatigued, neurologically disrupted, immune system has tanked, these are the side effects. It's in the scientific literature. 

Mycoplasma infection in Gulf War vets may lead to other more direct illnesses: A study done in 2004 in the journal of Blood, shows that cell line infection with mycoplasma changes DNA structure and leads to immortality of the cell lines involved. In Dr. Garth Nicolson's view, some Gulf War illness patients are sick due to chemical exposure, others are sick due to biological exposure, and some are sick due to both types of exposure. "This last group are often the sickest," he said. In 1996, he stated, "In fact, many of these people have probably died, although it's very difficult to get the true numbers. The estimates are somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000, but we don't have accurate figures on this because they're not being released."

Could you imagine holding Presidents Clinton, Bush and Bush responsible for the preventable deaths of 15,000 vets? That is one of the reasons there is massive cover-up and denial. 

Nicolson points out that new information reveals that soldiers may have been subjected to far more of these toxins than is publicly admitted. One of the most interesting revelations comes from a group of former CIA employees who stumbled on aerosol generators that were probably used as sprayer units to spread biologic agents. These were designed to fit onto any vehicle--from jeeps to trucks to helicopters to small aircraft--and used to contaminate large areas. In fact, some generators were found with their contents still intact. A further source of pollution may come from Scud weapons that were equipped with chemical and biological warheads. Iraqis were operating under a Soviet war doctrine that suggests mixing together chemical and biological agents. One CIA report indicated that 40 or more of these Scuds were loaded with both chemical and biological weapons. Reports circulating on the Internet site known as Gulflink said these weapons were ready to use, although whether or not they were actually used remains in question. Nicholson believes these weapons probably were used and that they were low-explosive warheads that blew up at 2000 to 5000 feet in the air. Reserve units observed warheads that exploded, dispersing a purplish blue vapor. During this time, chemical alarms sounded. People exposed to these vapors subsequently become very sick, and many subsequently died.

The Pentagon, Schwarzkopf, Colin Powell, all the top command all said it never happened. So we have a few very powerful people protecting the military industrial complex and their own reputations against the personal firsthand experience of hundreds of thousands of vets who saw and heard these explosions. They felt the impact. Yet, the President's Special Advisory Panel was instructed you can't talk with these vets. 

Nicolson summarizes the various modes of toxin transmission: "In our testimony to Congress, we indicated that there were several possible ways in which soldiers could have been exposed to chemical and biologic agents in the Gulf War. Number one among those was contaminated vaccines. The second was the sky-burst warheads used on some of the Scuds that could have delivered biological and chemical weapons. The third was the presence of exclusionary zones in southern Iraq in which...the sprayers were found. These are the principle ways, we feel, that soldiers could have been exposed during their service in the Persian Gulf theater of operations."

As mentioned previously, Nicolson has spoke of a genetically altered version of a mycoplasma as a disease-causing factor for Gulf War veterans. He said that antibiotics have been effective in treating this problem, which is, he said, is highly contagious. Being airborne, Nicolson explains, this microorganism can be picked up without intimate contact. It should be noted that some Desert Storm veterans' groups dispute Nicolson's claims, terming them alarmist. They point out that if the public perceives Gulf vets as carriers of a contagious disease, they could be discriminated against.

Uncompassionate Care

Our service men and women work hard for their country and take tremendous risks. This is all part of being in the military. But what happens when they suffer physically in the process and subsequently need medical care? Shouldn't they receive the very best care possible?

Dr. Thomas Callender, a physician who specializes in internal medicine in addition to environmental and occupational toxicology and who has worked with many Desert Storm vets, also spoke at the [same senate] hearing [mentioned above]: "First, as a result of their activities in Iraq-Kuwait-Saudi Arabia, the physical health of many of the Desert Storm veterans has been seriously impaired, and many more are having significant problems…My second observation is that the military has abandoned the soldiers and behaves as if it does not want to know what happened. Many of the soldiers I talked to are heroes in the classic American sense of the word, and this country should be proud of them.... They are not disposable objects to do a job and then be discarded when they are no longer needed...

The military has erroneously, superficially, and often deliberately chosen to conclude that Desert Storm veterans are either over-stressed neurotics or simply seeking secondary gain. In cases where physical impairment is undeniable, the military has simply turned its back on the soldiers and denies that the soldiers' problems could be related to Desert Storm.

"Many of the military health professionals do not have the proper training to deal with complex toxicological subjects," Callender continued. "Those that do have the basic knowledge take an antagonistic posture before they have seen the facts. The military health professionals that do need information are reluctant to seek information outside their fields. It has been my experience that military health professionals who do ask for assistance of knowledgeable physicians outside the military avoid doing so officially, as if they are afraid of their superiors' awareness of such a contact. In fact, civilian physicians are frequently ignored or verbally attacked by the military personnel who have not even researched the subjects at issue. Whenever asked to explain their behavior, I have been told that they state that they are following orders."

In June 1997, the Department of Veterans Affairs admitted that its doctors had given less than adequate attention and care to many of the men and women who have become ill after serving in the Gulf. The department's Undersecretary for Health, Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, told a Congressional committee that, "while we believe that our programs have been well designed, we also know that they are neither uniformly delivered nor perfect.

"We also recognize that some veterans have not received the kind of reception or care at VA medical facilities that we can be proud of," Kizer added. He was referring to the many reports that veterans complaining of fatigue, muscle and joint pain, memory loss, shortness of breath, and other common Gulf War syndrome symptoms are treated with little sympathy, cursory examinations, and little or no follow-up, the idea being that their problems exist "only in their heads." Said Stephen P. Backhus, of the General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative branch, "veterans who expect treatment designed for those suffering from Gulf War illnesses appeared more likely to express frustration and disappointment with the care they receive."

In conclusion, what we have here is we have hundreds of thousands of Gulf veterans that have become sick, hundreds of thousands of more who will become sick, tens of thousands who will die; and yet every single official government agency has turned their back on these veterans. The American media has not responded instead choosing to accept the official position experts brought in for Presidential Advisory Panels have deemed that there is nothing more there than posttraumatic stress syndrome even though we believe they should be treated. Treated in what way with psychiatric medication? Treated with tranquilizers, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors when they have bleeding ulcers on their faces and their gums are inflamed and when their bodies are toxic. As a nation we've turned our backs on the problem. We have also established a double standard that you can perjure. You can obstruct justice. You can destroy files. You can hide the truth. You can cover it up. You can use human subjects as experimental guinea pigs. You can weaponize against all international treaties a bacterium injected into people without their knowledge or consent, and not be held responsible. If any of the misdeeds of the Pentagon, the Defense Department, the Veterans Affairs, the CIA, the State Department had been done in the private sector, it would have been a major scandal. In the military and in the government with the support of certain legislators and the support of certain so-called expert witnesses and a reluctant media that doesn't challenge them, they walk away. I'm Gary Null. I hope that you do not walk away from this. My hope is that it will be used by individuals to demand open investigations with all the new science and all the new findings so we can help all the suffering Gulf vets. Thank you very much for reading. 

Paul Sullivan, a Gulf War I veteran, said, "Unfortunately for many veterans who get out of the service and don't have any health insurance, the V.A. is our only option. And our only option has crashed and burned under the stress of so many hundreds of thousands of vets coming in and looking for help."

Kizer expressed the intention of improving VA service to Gulf vets.

Will vets in fact receive the kind of care and compensation that they need? In September 1997, the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, which had studied vets' health problems for two years, made its final recommendations, which held out some hope for affected veterans. The most important recommendation was a call for a permanent statutory program of benefits and health care for service people experiencing post-Gulf problems. The organization of such a plan, and financial arrangements, would be matters for the Department of Veterans Affairs and Congress to work out. Congressional representatives involved in implementing such benefits, and in pushing for further research, include Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D.--W. Virginia), Representative Bernard Sanders (I.--Vermont), and Representative Cliff Sterns (R.--Florida), among others.

In a previous report (the preliminary one of January '97), the presidential committee had said it could not find a causal link between the symptoms referred to as Gulf War syndrome and the suspected causes. That report had mentioned stress as a probable factor, a finding that was left intact in the panel's final report, to the dismay of many veterans' groups. On the positive side, the advisory committee expressed the opinion that free care for veterans should not be linked to whether or not we understand the cause of their illnesses. Also, the panel called for more research into chemical causation and felt that the Pentagon had lost credibility with the public by denying that there were chemicals on the battlefield. While the Pentagon had been doing research into the effects of low-level exposure to chemical and biological warfare agents, the committee called for independent review of the research in light of the Pentagon's seeming lack of objectivity.

Arthur Caplan, noted bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the advisory committee, described his distrust of Pentagon research this way, "The Pentagon is not credible to continue inquiries that veterans and the public do not find persuasive....Pentagon officials are inclined to see things from the point of view at which they started: Deny that there were chemicals on the battlefield. The Pentagon sees the burden of evidence as falling on those who argue otherwise. I find that not a credible stance. I find it distasteful. I find it unpersuasive. I find it, in fact, unbelievable."

The scientific evidence, in favor of the vet's testimonials about their illness is persuasive:

A 1998 Boston study showed that Persian Gulf vets were more likely to report illness than vets who served in Germany. "Persian Gulf-deployed veterans were more likely to report neurological, pulmonary, gastrointestinal, cardiac, dermatological, musculoskeletal, psychological and neuropsychological system symptoms than Germany veterans." To address the previously mentioned issue of reports of contamination or exposure versus actual illness, controls were done with statistical analysis, exposure data and post traumatic stress disorder, and the conclusion was: "several Gulf-service environmental exposures are associated with increased health symptom reporting involving predicted body-systems, after adjusting for war-zone stressor exposures and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." 

What Clinton Said

In November 1997, President Clinton issued a statement on Gulf War Veterans' illnesses. Reiterating his panel's call for compensation and care for all affected veterans, whether or not the cause of illness is fully understood, he said he would ask the National Academy of Sciences to review the ongoing research on the connections between all the reported illnesses and Gulf War service. He also said he planned to help Congress pass laws guaranteeing that veterans' benefits would continue during future administrations.

Additionally, Clinton spoke of dedicating $13.2 million for research on how low-level exposure to chemical agents can cause illness, and on other possible causes. He said that former Senator Warren Rudman would be leading an oversight board to ensure that the Defense Department's research meets high standards.

Also, "to apply the lessons we have learned for the future," Clinton said, "I am directing the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to create a new Force Health Protection Program. Every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine will have a comprehensive, life-long medical record of all illnesses and injuries they suffer, the care and inoculations they receive, and their exposure to different hazards. These records will help us prevent illness and identify and cure those that occur."

What Clinton said sounded good. But we should keep in mind that the panel he appointed was the one that dragged its feet on getting rid of the stress explanation for Gulf War syndrome.

We Need to Learn More

There is still a lot to understand about our current Gulf conflict and the unknown aftermath to come from Gulf War II. One field of inquiry involves Garth Nicolson's contention that a genetically altered mycoplasma is responsible for some Gulf War illness. Another centers on the role of depleted uranium. It will take years to unravel what is currently happening in Iraq with regards to the health of our soldiers currently at war, but we know that our currently deployed soldiers have been exposed to mycoplasma and depleted uranium. As for additional chemical exposures, we will see the health effects of our living vets as they start to return from Iraq in the coming months and years. It is important, however, that we understand what has caused the illness and death our soldiers returning from Gulf I, in order to create a better healthcare system for patriotic citizens who need a medical system with a better paradigm, in order to treat them more humanely and effectively than we did after Gulf One.

Pentagon officials asserted that the obliteration of the Iraqi bunker at Kamisiyah in Gulf I was supervised by experts trained in chemical warfare, but according to several U.S. servicemen who were present at the scene, this was not the case. According to Corporals Brian Martin and Chris Tullius, whose recollections of the Kamisiyah incident have been corroborated by their executive officer, Major Randy Riggins, chemical specialists were never present and testing that was supposedly conducted prior to and after the demolition of the bunker did not occur. Martin, who had videotaped the entire proceedings at the bunker, revealed that chemical detection devices were not even taken out at the site, while Riggins indicated that his troops did not examine the inside of the bunkers because the entrances had been mined by the recently departed Iraqis.

According to Riggins, the enormous explosion of the demolition caused a downpour of debris to fall upon himself and his troops. Riggins recalled that the immensity of the blast had triggered chemical detector alarms at the engineers' camp ten miles away. Unfortunately, the servicemen present at the Kamisiyah depot were not provided with ample warning, and consequently, their exposure to noxious fallout has since resulted in numerous reports of chronic disorders within the unit.

One of the most important questions that will be researched is the extent to which low-level chemical exposure affects people over the long term. That there is an effect has in fact been documented years ago, i.e., in a 1974 study entitled Delayed Toxic Effects of Chemical Warfare Agents. This study, conducted by the director of the Institute of Chemical Toxicology of the East German Academy of Sciences, Dr. Karlbeinz Lohs, describes how workers at chemical-weapons plants were diagnosed with chronic disorders that were the same as symptoms currently being exhibited by Gulf War veterans. The whole gamut of problems--from neurological to gastrointestinal and cardiac problems, to memory loss, increased cancer incidence, and a higher birth defect rate--is the same. And further research has shown that exposure to organophosphate insecticides, which in essence are diluted forms of chemical warfare agents, can promote the onset of chronic health disorders.

The Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses was instrumental in creating the Persian Gulf War Veterans act of 1998. Congressman Lane Evans promised that the legislation would "improv[e] the way the Department of Veterans Affairs compensates Persian Gulf veterans, establishing effective oversight for the federal research agenda, addressing the need for identification of emerging technologies, and creating more effective health care treatment options for veterans."

"Dr. Arthur Caplan, a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses (PAC), recently told in 1998, "Gulf War Illness is a very real phenomena. No one on this committee should doubt that for a moment. What should be forthcoming…is an unwavering commitment from this Congress and this administration to provide the health and disability benefits to all those who became sick when they came back from the Gulf." In a November 15, 2005 statement by Susan H. Mayer, Chief Public Health and Environmental Hazards Officer at the US department of Veterans Affairs, defends the process by which the VA implements the scientific data which fuels the policy decisions implementing the Persian Gulf Act of 1998 and the interface with other legislation important to how soldiers with Gulf War Illness are treated:

"In addition to VA's implementation of the "Persian Gulf War Veterans Act of 1998" (Gulf War Veterans Act), VA is also charged with simultaneously implementing the provision of section 101 of the "Veterans Programs Enhancement Act of 1998" (Programs Enhancement Act), which establishes an overlapping framework for addressing issues relating to the health status of Gulf War veterans. Thus, our implementation of the former statute must take into account our responsibilities under the latter."

This Programs Enhancement act requires that the VA directly with the National Academy of Sciences NAS to review scientific literature with regard to proving the causes of Gulf War Illness. They are required to make regulations as how to proceed in treating illness. Almost conversely, The Gulf War Veterans Act requires the VA to find out whether illnesses are directly related to the causes of the war and to make recommendations directly to Congress about how to proceed treating illness. 

Her confusing statement that, "every effort must be made to reconcile the provisions of two statutes enacted under the circumstances presented here before resorting to rules of construction for giving one primacy over the other" suggests that there is still bureaucratic confusion that is inhibiting the free flow of policy to treatment

The VA's statement suggests that all efforts are being made to treat sick veterans of the Gulf war:

"VA's task in reviewing these reports is merely to decide whether additional presumptions of service connection are warranted by current scientific evidence for particular diseases. This process would not in any way limit the right of any veteran under existing claim procedures to establish service connection on a direct basis, and with VA's assistance, for any disease that could be related to their service in the 1991 Gulf War." However, reviewing Veteran Michael Wood's testimony in the same month, seems to paint a very different picture:

Michael Woods, quoted earlier in this article, complained in 2005 to congress, however, that the necessary paradigm changes had not been made within the medical community and medical bureaucracy:

"The Doctor I saw on my last visit even stated that she cannot believe that Veterans receive compensation for Gulf War illnesses because there is nothing really wrong with them that relates to there service. She even refused to fill the prescriptions that have kept my illnesses from continuing to decline.…Today's doctors are trained to diagnosis illnesses[;] Require that all VA Doctors be required to under go training that reflects current science." Susan Mather strongly indicates in her report the importance of staying on top of the most current research and the importance of reviewing both animal and human studies, as relying more heavily on one or the other can leave out important discoveries:

"Laboratory animals often do not respond to hazardous exposures in the same manner as humans and, therefore, it can be dangerous to predict clinical effects in humans based solely upon toxicological observations of laboratory animals." 

She recommended that a year 2000 report on Sarin gas relied heavily on animal studies, and a more well rounded review with human studies needs to be done. In a later review, the IOM (Institute of Medicine) was reported to having studied human research with regards to human studies as well. Her statement does indicate bureaucracy growth, but, obviously, bureaucracy is not evolving quickly enough to meet the needs of the veterans on the ground:

As mentioned earlier, as of November 2005, in the Department of Veterans affairs report: Gulf War Veterans Information System, 14,228 Undiagnosed Illness claims were processed on behalf of deployed vets to the Gulf, but 10,655 veterans were denied coverage. 

The evidence is there. Gulf veterans are still suffering from more than stress. And as the body of current research expands upon that of the past, no one will be able to deny that truth.

Strong Insecticides Used
Hom and Haley's studies, mentioned earlier in this paper as well as others done recently with Duke University scientists, are finally demonstrating that chemical synergy, rather than combat stress, is the underlying factor in Gulf War syndrome. All of the the toxins to which troops were exposed show the potential for synergistic damage is extensive and hard to fully comprehend: ipesticides, insect repellent, sometimes used in the form of flea collars worn by soldiers, DEET, nerve gas, anti-nerve-gas medication, experimental vaccines, burning-oil-well fumes, and depleted uranium.
The use of insect repellent is a mundane factor that nevertheless ought not to be overlooked when considering synergistic damage. Stars and Stripes reports that while the insecticide DEET was deemed safe in concentrations of less than 31 percent, Desert Storm participants received DEET in strengths between 33 and 75 percent. The combination of DEET and PB--those pyridostigmine bromide (PEER-id-oh-stig-meen BRO-myde) anti-nerve gas pills that servicemen and women were ordered to take, is being studied at the University of Florida at Gainesville for their combined effects. Also, the insecticide permethrin, sprayed on soldiers' uniforms, was used in strengths exceeding safe levels, and may have exacerbated the effects of other substances.
Unfortunately, no one had studied what happens when an insecticide is sprayed on soldier's uniforms with strengths far exceeding the safe levels and then that soldier is exposed to some other contaminant.
In the 1994 senate hearing, Rockefeller went on to say that "the use of investigational drugs in the Persian Gulf is especially troublesome. The Pentagon did studies of one of these drugs, pyridostigmine, in a cautious way before the war. The study excluded anyone who might be harmed by the drug. After protecting a few hundred men who volunteered for these studies, they threw caution to the winds, ignoring all warnings of potential harm, and gave these drugs to hundreds of thousands of soldiers with virtually no warnings and no safeguards.
"If that wasn't bad enough," Rockefeller said, "they administered these drugs and vaccines in such a way that there was a very good chance they wouldn't have even worked for the intended purpose. They would not nave protected most soldiers from chemical or biological warfare. These are strong statements, and I don't make them lightly."
The news gets worse in that the giving of the pyridostigmine bromide was probably a total mistake. That's because while pyridostigmine is supposed to be effective against a particular chemical agent, soman, it may make individuals more vulnerable to other nerve agents, such as one called sarin. The only verified report of chemical weapons in the gulf concluded that it was this later agent, sarin that was present. In other words, experimental pills were given for the wrong agent.
In a sense this has the terrible appearance of history repeating itself. All Vietnam veterans know by now that Agent Orange, which contained a known toxin -- defoliant dioxin -- was widely used in deforestation efforts in Vietnam. That poison became a deadly time bomb ticking away in the bodies of up to a million GIs, who were later denied recognition of their problem. Not to mention their inadequate treatment and lack of benefits.
There seems to be a pattern in the military's misuse of our fellow citizens. Neil Tetzlaff, who was a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force during the Gulf War, told the May 6 Senate hearing about his health problems, which began even before he arrived in Saudi Arabia: "While being mobilized, I was issued a seven-day supply of pyridostigmine-boromide pills and was told to start taking them on an eight-hour schedule, which I did. The package contained no warnings. For me, this was a chronic overdose of pyridostigmine. Both my immediate physical and mental symptoms corroborate this fact.
"On the plane ride to Saudi and during my first day in-country," Tetzlaff said, "I was nauseated and vomited. I attributed the sickness to the plane ride and tenseness of the situation. On my second day there, I vomited again and felt different. I attributed the sickness to something I'd eaten. On the third day, I was extremely nauseated and vomited many times. I sought out the Doctor and discussed my illness with him. We dismissed it as something I had eaten at the Saudi canteen. On my fourth day there, I vomited violently, the worst ever of my life, and was acting a bit off center and muddled.... On the morning of the seventh day, I vomited about a quart of blood.
"Since taking pyridostigmine while deployed for Desert Shield, I have been suffering moderate, severe, and intolerable pain, fatigue easily, and lately have developed one heck of a palsy. I've lost my ability to speak because I can't recall words, have extreme problems with my short-term memory, and I had a dramatic change in my olfactory system. The last three and a half years have been extremely difficult on my family and me. This brief description by no means enumerates the mental and physical disabilities I've had to overcome.
Tetzlaff reported that "military medical doctors routinely returned soldiers taking pyridostigmine to duty, even though they were suffering overdose symptoms such as vomiting, increased urinary frequency, and headaches, without telling the soldiers to stop taking pyridostigmine." 
I knew then I was in deep trouble," Tetzlaff continued, "and I headed straight for the doctor. Shortly thereafter I began to lose consciousness, and the doctor started an I.V. After examining me in the Taif clinic, the doctor commandeered a C130 and air-evacuated me to the Royal Saudi Hospital in Riyadh....
'As the situation stands now," Tetzlaff went on, "the disabling effects of pyridostigmine are not known and are not being investigated, even though the drug was used during Desert Storm on an experimental basis. I am caught in the same dilemma as the victims of Crossroads and Agent Orange. During the nuclear tests in the forties, radiation wasn't considered hazardous, and during Vietnam, Agent Orange wasn't considered harmful. Pyridostigmine, taken at the dose of 30 milligrams every eight hours, is considered to be non-injurious to humans by the D.O.D."
He also said that in November 1990 some pharmacists deployed to the gulf refused to issue the experimental pills to soldiers without getting consent forms from them. "They also raised a number of moral, ethical, and legal issues." Tetzlaff asked, "Was the United States guilty of doing exactly the same thing the Nazis did in World War II?" This forced D.O.D. to get F.D.A.'s approval to issue the experimental medicine to soldiers without individual consent. Even with F.D.A.'s approval, there is still a great deal of discussion in medical and pharmaceutical literature as to whether D.O.D. violated the Geneva Accords."
The Senate hearing at which Tetzlaff Spoke was the culmination of an intensive six-month investigation that, Senator Rockefeller said, "showed a reckless disregard that shocked me, and I think that will shock all Americans."
Dr. Callender who was at the same hearing in 1994 explained that while pyridostigmine bromide (P.Y.B.) helps counter nerve poison, it's also one of a class of agents that are essentially pesticides or nerve poisons themselves. He said that while preliminary research done on P.Y.B. by the Department of Defense excluded people with a susceptibility to the substance, once combat personnel were getting the drug, no such screenings for susceptibility were done. Also, women were never included in those studies, despite the fact that they were in combat areas. So, said Callender, "these facts make the entire concept of the safety of P.Y.B. as being promoted by the military untenable. If only a few percent of the soldiers are susceptible, then many tens of thousands of individuals are at risk for serious side effects."
Other problems with the preliminary research on P.Y.B., Callender added, included the fact that the tremendous variability between individuals of different genetic makeup was never taken into account. This led to problems for many of the soldiers who had to take the drug. "Some of the patients that I interviewed that had the worst side effects from P.Y.B. also had personal histories and familial histories of an intolerance to many medications, therefore suggesting a genetic, biochemical susceptibility," Callender stated. "This history was ignored, as well as complaints of adverse reactions following each time the P.Y.B. was taken."
Here's some of what Zuckerman and Olson had to say about pyridostigmine (Ph.D.'s Diana Zuckerman and Patricia Olson conducted an investigation for Senator Rockefeller in conjunction with the May hearing): "Pyridostigmine bromide is a chemical which is believed to enhance the effectiveness of established drugs for the treatment of nerve-agent poisoning. Pyridostigmine is also a nerve agent itself.... In recent studies, animals given pyridostigmine followed by two antidotes (atropine and 2-PAM) were more likely to survive exposure to a nerve agent called soman. However, pyridostigmine pretreatment may make individuals more vulnerable to other nerve agents, such as sarin. The D.O.D. scientists concluded that pyridostigmine should only be used when the chemical-warfare threat is soman. Iraq was believed to have both soman and sarin, but by 1994 the only verified report of chemical weapons in the Gulf War concluded that sarin was present.
Zuckerman and Olson also brought up the possibility of synergistic effects in relation to P.Y.B. "Last year," they reported, "Dr. James Fox, a scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, conducted research on cockroaches that could have important implications for Persian Gulf War veterans. He found that when used in combination with pyridostigmine, a common pesticide called Deet became ten times as toxic as when used alone. Deet and many other pesticides were widely used in the Gulf War. If individuals who took pyridostigmine pills became more vulnerable to pesticides ... this could explain the serious neurological symptoms experienced by so many Gulf War veterans."
According to Zuckerman and Olson, initially the Department of Defense assured the F.D.A. that investigational drugs would be administered to soldiers on a voluntary basis, information on the products would be provided, and soldiers would be monitored for ill effects. As it turned out, though, none of these conditions were met. The Defense Department got the F. D.A. to grant them waivers from informed-consent regulations for the use of pyridostigmine and botulinum-toxoid vaccine. As a result, many gulf veterans were not told what vaccine they were being given or what the risks were. Zuckerman and Olson informed Rockefeller that "many report that they were told not to tell medical personnel that they had received a vaccination, even if the vaccination caused pain or swelling. No record of the vaccine was available in medical records. As a result, physicians who were concerned about any local or systemic reactions often had no information about the possible causes of those symptoms. Veterans who claim they were harmed by the vaccines or pyridostigmine frequently have no proof that they were vaccinated or took the pills, or that they had an adverse reaction."
Let's put this into perspective for a moment. Let's say that you're a vet and you're having problems. You go to your doctor and you say, 'doctor I took these PB pills. I had these vaccines. I was exposed to this DEET pesticide, and I now have nightmares, night sweats. I have skin rashes that bleed. I cannot sleep. I'm hallucinating.' The doctor says, 'well I've looked in your medical records, and there is no vaccines, no pills that you took.' The vet says, 'but I did and all of us did.' The doctor says, 'I don't see any infection.' So then the doctor calls the Veteran's Administration or Defense Department, and says, 'I've got a vet here.' They say, 'it's all post traumatic stress syndrome. It's all psychiatric disorders. Give them a tranquilizer.'
Should we at this point begin to ask ourselves did the Department of Defense and the Pentagon with intentionally delete all vaccine files they could and dissuade individuals from speaking about what they had been exposed to? That's what we may be facing, and that is what the vets are facing. It's an extreme situation.
One of the veterans who knows about this situation firsthand is the Reverend Dr. Barry Walker, who served as a chaplain in Saudi Arabia and ultimately in Iraq and Kuwait. Here's some of what he told the Senate committee hearing: "On January 16, 1991, I received the first of two shots of a vaccine, but we were not told exactly what it was. We were later told that the purpose of the vaccine was to protect us; rumor was that it was for protection against anthrax. Also in January, after the first Scud was launched, we were ordered to start taking some pills, although we were not told exactly what they were, either. All we were told was that the pills would protect us against chemical and biological weapons. We were told to take the pills and not given a choice, though some soldiers did not take them. I was expected to be an example to others, so I took them at first. I later learned that these pills were pyridostigmine."
Various laboratory studies examined the various endocrine, immunological, neurological, and systemic effects of pyridostigmine:
A study suggested that in addition to severe symptoms, the neurotoxin PB may disrupt certain neurotransmitters (vasoactive neuropeptides) important in brain body regulation, hormonal function, and cellular protection. Treatment against the effect of PB includes "options such as thymectomy, corticosteroids, plasma exchange, anti-idiotype antibodies and receptor genomic expression reactivation/suppression may be considered."
If you put someone on corticosteroids, you're absolutely going to destroy their immune system. So if their immune system is already under attack from PB, and then you give them corticosteroids, you could kill the person. But that's what the government was doing.
In studies involving the hormonal regulation of the thyroid, PB was shown not to be implicated in some of the thyroid pathways. However, in these studies, much smaller amounts of PB were administered than the vets received before and during deployment.
One article suggests that treatment options may use the myasthenia gravis model. A study on mal-formed acetylcholine receptors in children resulting in myasthenia gravis like symptoms, suggests that acetylcholine receptors may also be involved in Gulf War Illness. Surprisingly, the culprit "pyridostigmine may prove to have a role in therapy."
A year 2001 paper done in South Carolina examined the effects of pesticides and other toxins, which to which vets had been exposed. This study examined various immune markers on rodents' exposure to jet fuel, DEET, and Pyridostigmine Bromide. The study found that the use of these agents " not profoundly alter many immunological endpoints, except for "the PFC and DTH response", which are standard lab assays which study general immune response with introduction of outside antigens.
The fact that the pesticides and jet fuel did not affect the majority of laboratory immune markers in this study, however, does not mean that there are not more direct pathways to illness from these external agents:
In an interesting article written by the University of Texas Institute for Health Science suggested that a new paradigm for illness ought to be posited for those suffering from Gulf War Illness, characterized initially by a primary exposure to a toxin, which brings down a person's natural resistance and tolerance, and then subsequent small amounts of the toxin will bring on the original acute symptoms of exposure. They called this illness, or new paradigm, "Toxicant-Induced Loss of Tolerance" ("TILT"). The article suggests that in addition to the numerous physical symptoms mentioned several times earlier in this article, withdrawal and cravings experienced by sufferers of this syndrome indicated that neurotransmitters may be involved.
Similarly, a review of the literature in Nottingham England in 2001 compares the immunological literature on Gulf war patients, and the authors feel that Gulf War Illness is largely one of association, where an environmental trigger, such as gasoline, experienced at home, could bring back a 'sickness response', originally triggered by toxic environmental factors in the Gulf. This 'sickness response' is largely mediated immunologically and neurologically, as opposed the traditional allergy response that originally was suspected.
A 1998 study in Dallas of Naval reserve troops studied the correspondence between reported symptoms and chemical exposure. The study showed that exposure to 'sublethal' doses of toxins caused delayed the onset of effects. Effects were measured with various bodily, visual, and auditory standard neurological tests. Similar animal studies at Duke University confirmed the findings.
One animal study suggested that different stressors caused differing bodily responses after exposure to Pyridosigmine:
In rodent studies, a mixed response to the effects of Pyridosigmine on brain function under various environmental stressors was examined. Although PB was shown to affect mice after forced swimming, guinea pigs receiving PB and forced to undergo heat stressors did not have brain effects from the PB administration.
So let's put this in perspective for a moment. Some Gulf vets were not exposed to anything other than the original vaccine. Some didn't even go to the Gulf theater. They were right in the United States during the whole Gulf War, but they ended up with Gulf War Syndrome. Their symptoms are generally chronic fatigue syndrome, swelling of the legs, night sweats, and nightmares. Now when many of the Gulf War vets went over and took the PB tablets, they not only had the same symptoms as the others that did not take the PB tablets, but then they had skin lesions. They had pneumonia like conditions. They had all forms of fungus that would not go away.
Then when you see that someone was exposed to a biological nerve gas that exploded in the scud missiles, then they had another series of symptoms. So depending upon how many different things you were exposed to would determine how extensive your illnesses would be. We can now see this. I personally worked with some Gulf War vets, and I'm working with one right now who was exposed to everything and was virtually debilitated. Couldn't function, and now through a holistic protocol, the person is back on his feet. 
In addition to the effects of Pyridostigmine Bromide on the neural pathways, PB is also thought to have an involvement in the reproductive system as well:
Rodents were used to test possible reproductive effects of toxic chemical exposure. "Testicular damage was significantly augmented when … animals were further exposed to a combination of chemicals and stress." Tests noted particular effects were focused on sperm production.
Direct hormonal suppression, however, may not be the only involvement with the cause of Gulf War Illness on the hormonal system:
A 2004 article in Germany points out that co-infection with Mycoplasma fermentans (which we have seen in other articles on Gulf war Illness) is a common occurrence.
Again, how did they get the mycoplasma? Dr. Garth Nicolson believes it came in the vaccines as an experimental adjuvant. 
Supporting the idea that bacterial infection can lead to tiredness and fatigue is the following: A year 2004 study in Germany discusses the link between bacterial infection with (Chlamydia) and (prostaglandin E2 production) with chronically inflamed states. (Chlamidophylia) Infection is known previously to cause chronic inflammation, which can lead to tiredness, reduced thyroid function, heart disease, and diabetes. 
So, once you put a vaccine into someone's body and you have weaponized a mycoplasma, and now you have all these vets who are chronically fatigued, neurologically disrupted, immune system has tanked, these are the side effects. It's in the scientific literature. 
Mycoplasma infection in Gulf War vets may lead to other more direct illnesses: A study done in 2004 in the journal of Blood, shows that cell line infection with mycoplasma changes DNA structure and leads to immortality of the cell lines involved. In Dr. Garth Nicolson's view, some Gulf War illness patients are sick due to chemical exposure, others are sick due to biological exposure, and some are sick due to both types of exposure. "This last group are often the sickest," he said. In 1996, he stated, "In fact, many of these people have probably died, although it's very difficult to get the true numbers. The estimates are somewhere between 12,000 and 15,000, but we don't have accurate figures on this because they're not being released."
Could you imagine holding Presidents Clinton, Bush and Bush responsible for the preventable deaths of 15,000 vets? That is one of the reasons there is massive cover-up and denial. 
Nicolson points out that new information reveals that soldiers may have been subjected to far more of these toxins than is publicly admitted. One of the most interesting revelations comes from a group of former CIA employees who stumbled on aerosol generators that were probably used as sprayer units to spread biologic agents. These were designed to fit onto any vehicle--from jeeps to trucks to helicopters to small aircraft--and used to contaminate large areas. In fact, some generators were found with their contents still intact. A further source of pollution may come from Scud weapons that were equipped with chemical and biological warheads. Iraqis were operating under a Soviet war doctrine that suggests mixing together chemical and biological agents. One CIA report indicated that 40 or more of these Scuds were loaded with both chemical and biological weapons. Reports circulating on the Internet site known as Gulflink said these weapons were ready to use, although whether or not they were actually used remains in question. Nicholson believes these weapons probably were used and that they were low-explosive warheads that blew up at 2000 to 5000 feet in the air. Reserve units observed warheads that exploded, dispersing a purplish blue vapor. During this time, chemical alarms sounded. People exposed to these vapors subsequently become very sick, and many subsequently died.
The Pentagon, Schwarzkopf, Colin Powell, all the top command all said it never happened. So we have a few very powerful people protecting the military industrial complex and their own reputations against the personal firsthand experience of hundreds of thousands of vets who saw and heard these explosions. They felt the impact. Yet, the President's Special Advisory Panel was instructed you can't talk with these vets. 
Nicolson summarizes the various modes of toxin transmission: "In our testimony to Congress, we indicated that there were several possible ways in which soldiers could have been exposed to chemical and biologic agents in the Gulf War. Number one among those was contaminated vaccines. The second was the sky-burst warheads used on some of the Scuds that could have delivered biological and chemical weapons. The third was the presence of exclusionary zones in southern Iraq in which...the sprayers were found. These are the principle ways, we feel, that soldiers could have been exposed during their service in the Persian Gulf theater of operations."
As mentioned previously, Nicolson has spoke of a genetically altered version of a mycoplasma as a disease-causing factor for Gulf War veterans. He said that antibiotics have been effective in treating this problem, which is, he said, is highly contagious. Being airborne, Nicolson explains, this microorganism can be picked up without intimate contact. It should be noted that some Desert Storm veterans' groups dispute Nicolson's claims, terming them alarmist. They point out that if the public perceives Gulf vets as carriers of a contagious disease, they could be discriminated against.
Uncompassionate Care
Our service men and women work hard for their country and take tremendous risks. This is all part of being in the military. But what happens when they suffer physically in the process and subsequently need medical care? Shouldn't they receive the very best care possible?
Dr. Thomas Callender, a physician who specializes in internal medicine in addition to environmental and occupational toxicology and who has worked with many Desert Storm vets, also spoke at the [same senate] hearing [mentioned above]: "First, as a result of their activities in Iraq-Kuwait-Saudi Arabia, the physical health of many of the Desert Storm veterans has been seriously impaired, and many more are having significant problems…My second observation is that the military has abandoned the soldiers and behaves as if it does not want to know what happened. Many of the soldiers I talked to are heroes in the classic American sense of the word, and this country should be proud of them.... They are not disposable objects to do a job and then be discarded when they are no longer needed...
The military has erroneously, superficially, and often deliberately chosen to conclude that Desert Storm veterans are either over-stressed neurotics or simply seeking secondary gain. In cases where physical impairment is undeniable, the military has simply turned its back on the soldiers and denies that the soldiers' problems could be related to Desert Storm.
"Many of the military health professionals do not have the proper training to deal with complex toxicological subjects," Callender continued. "Those that do have the basic knowledge take an antagonistic posture before they have seen the facts. The military health professionals that do need information are reluctant to seek information outside their fields. It has been my experience that military health professionals who do ask for assistance of knowledgeable physicians outside the military avoid doing so officially, as if they are afraid of their superiors' awareness of such a contact. In fact, civilian physicians are frequently ignored or verbally attacked by the military personnel who have not even researched the subjects at issue. Whenever asked to explain their behavior, I have been told that they state that they are following orders."
In June 1997, the Department of Veterans Affairs admitted that its doctors had given less than adequate attention and care to many of the men and women who have become ill after serving in the Gulf. The department's Undersecretary for Health, Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, told a Congressional committee that, "while we believe that our programs have been well designed, we also know that they are neither uniformly delivered nor perfect.
"We also recognize that some veterans have not received the kind of reception or care at VA medical facilities that we can be proud of," Kizer added. He was referring to the many reports that veterans complaining of fatigue, muscle and joint pain, memory loss, shortness of breath, and other common Gulf War syndrome symptoms are treated with little sympathy, cursory examinations, and little or no follow-up, the idea being that their problems exist "only in their heads." Said Stephen P. Backhus, of the General Accounting Office, Congress's investigative branch, "veterans who expect treatment designed for those suffering from Gulf War illnesses appeared more likely to express frustration and disappointment with the care they receive."
In conclusion, what we have here is we have hundreds of thousands of Gulf veterans that have become sick, hundreds of thousands of more who will become sick, tens of thousands who will die; and yet every single official government agency has turned their back on these veterans. The American media has not responded instead choosing to accept the official position experts brought in for Presidential Advisory Panels have deemed that there is nothing more there than posttraumatic stress syndrome even though we believe they should be treated. Treated in what way with psychiatric medication? Treated with tranquilizers, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors when they have bleeding ulcers on their faces and their gums are inflamed and when their bodies are toxic. As a nation we've turned our backs on the problem. We have also established a double standard that you can perjure. You can obstruct justice. You can destroy files. You can hide the truth. You can cover it up. You can use human subjects as experimental guinea pigs. You can weaponize against all international treaties a bacterium injected into people without their knowledge or consent, and not be held responsible. If any of the misdeeds of the Pentagon, the Defense Department, the Veterans Affairs, the CIA, the State Department had been done in the private sector, it would have been a major scandal. In the military and in the government with the support of certain legislators and the support of certain so-called expert witnesses and a reluctant media that doesn't challenge them, they walk away. I'm Gary Null. I hope that you do not walk away from this. My hope is that it will be used by individuals to demand open investigations with all the new science and all the new findings so we can help all the suffering Gulf vets. Thank you very much for reading. 
Paul Sullivan, a Gulf War I veteran, said, "Unfortunately for many veterans who get out of the service and don't have any health insurance, the V.A. is our only option. And our only option has crashed and burned under the stress of so many hundreds of thousands of vets coming in and looking for help."
Kizer expressed the intention of improving VA service to Gulf vets.
Will vets in fact receive the kind of care and compensation that they need? In September 1997, the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, which had studied vets' health problems for two years, made its final recommendations, which held out some hope for affected veterans. The most important recommendation was a call for a permanent statutory program of benefits and health care for service people experiencing post-Gulf problems. The organization of such a plan, and financial arrangements, would be matters for the Department of Veterans Affairs and Congress to work out. Congressional representatives involved in implementing such benefits, and in pushing for further research, include Senator John D. Rockefeller IV (D.--W. Virginia), Representative Bernard Sanders (I.--Vermont), and Representative Cliff Sterns (R.--Florida), among others.
In a previous report (the preliminary one of January '97), the presidential committee had said it could not find a causal link between the symptoms referred to as Gulf War syndrome and the suspected causes. That report had mentioned stress as a probable factor, a finding that was left intact in the panel's final report, to the dismay of many veterans' groups. On the positive side, the advisory committee expressed the opinion that free care for veterans should not be linked to whether or not we understand the cause of their illnesses. Also, the panel called for more research into chemical causation and felt that the Pentagon had lost credibility with the public by denying that there were chemicals on the battlefield. While the Pentagon had been doing research into the effects of low-level exposure to chemical and biological warfare agents, the committee called for independent review of the research in light of the Pentagon's seeming lack of objectivity.
Arthur Caplan, noted bioethics professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the advisory committee, described his distrust of Pentagon research this way, "The Pentagon is not credible to continue inquiries that veterans and the public do not find persuasive....Pentagon officials are inclined to see things from the point of view at which they started: Deny that there were chemicals on the battlefield. The Pentagon sees the burden of evidence as falling on those who argue otherwise. I find that not a credible stance. I find it distasteful. I find it unpersuasive. I find it, in fact, unbelievable."
The scientific evidence, in favor of the vet's testimonials about their illness is persuasive:
A 1998 Boston study showed that Persian Gulf vets were more likely to report illness than vets who served in Germany. "Persian Gulf-deployed veterans were more likely to report neurological, pulmonary, gastrointestinal, cardiac, dermatological, musculoskeletal, psychological and neuropsychological system symptoms than Germany veterans." To address the previously mentioned issue of reports of contamination or exposure versus actual illness, controls were done with statistical analysis, exposure data and post traumatic stress disorder, and the conclusion was: "several Gulf-service environmental exposures are associated with increased health symptom reporting involving predicted body-systems, after adjusting for war-zone stressor exposures and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder." 
What Clinton Said
In November 1997, President Clinton issued a statement on Gulf War Veterans' illnesses. Reiterating his panel's call for compensation and care for all affected veterans, whether or not the cause of illness is fully understood, he said he would ask the National Academy of Sciences to review the ongoing research on the connections between all the reported illnesses and Gulf War service. He also said he planned to help Congress pass laws guaranteeing that veterans' benefits would continue during future administrations.
Additionally, Clinton spoke of dedicating $13.2 million for research on how low-level exposure to chemical agents can cause illness, and on other possible causes. He said that former Senator Warren Rudman would be leading an oversight board to ensure that the Defense Department's research meets high standards.
Also, "to apply the lessons we have learned for the future," Clinton said, "I am directing the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to create a new Force Health Protection Program. Every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine will have a comprehensive, life-long medical record of all illnesses and injuries they suffer, the care and inoculations they receive, and their exposure to different hazards. These records will help us prevent illness and identify and cure those that occur."
What Clinton said sounded good. But we should keep in mind that the panel he appointed was the one that dragged its feet on getting rid of the stress explanation for Gulf War syndrome.
We Need to Learn More
There is still a lot to understand about our current Gulf conflict and the unknown aftermath to come from Gulf War II. One field of inquiry involves Garth Nicolson's contention that a genetically altered mycoplasma is responsible for some Gulf War illness. Another centers on the role of depleted uranium. It will take years to unravel what is currently happening in Iraq with regards to the health of our soldiers currently at war, but we know that our currently deployed soldiers have been exposed to mycoplasma and depleted uranium. As for additional chemical exposures, we will see the health effects of our living vets as they start to return from Iraq in the coming months and years. It is important, however, that we understand what has caused the illness and death our soldiers returning from Gulf I, in order to create a better healthcare system for patriotic citizens who need a medical system with a better paradigm, in order to treat them more humanely and effectively than we did after Gulf One.
Pentagon officials asserted that the obliteration of the Iraqi bunker at Kamisiyah in Gulf I was supervised by experts trained in chemical warfare, but according to several U.S. servicemen who were present at the scene, this was not the case. According to Corporals Brian Martin and Chris Tullius, whose recollections of the Kamisiyah incident have been corroborated by their executive officer, Major Randy Riggins, chemical specialists were never present and testing that was supposedly conducted prior to and after the demolition of the bunker did not occur. Martin, who had videotaped the entire proceedings at the bunker, revealed that chemical detection devices were not even taken out at the site, while Riggins indicated that his troops did not examine the inside of the bunkers because the entrances had been mined by the recently departed Iraqis.
According to Riggins, the enormous explosion of the demolition caused a downpour of debris to fall upon himself and his troops. Riggins recalled that the immensity of the blast had triggered chemical detector alarms at the engineers' camp ten miles away. Unfortunately, the servicemen present at the Kamisiyah depot were not provided with ample warning, and consequently, their exposure to noxious fallout has since resulted in numerous reports of chronic disorders within the unit.
One of the most important questions that will be researched is the extent to which low-level chemical exposure affects people over the long term. That there is an effect has in fact been documented years ago, i.e., in a 1974 study entitled Delayed Toxic Effects of Chemical Warfare Agents. This study, conducted by the director of the Institute of Chemical Toxicology of the East German Academy of Sciences, Dr. Karlbeinz Lohs, describes how workers at chemical-weapons plants were diagnosed with chronic disorders that were the same as symptoms currently being exhibited by Gulf War veterans. The whole gamut of problems--from neurological to gastrointestinal and cardiac problems, to memory loss, increased cancer incidence, and a higher birth defect rate--is the same. And further research has shown that exposure to organophosphate insecticides, which in essence are diluted forms of chemical warfare agents, can promote the onset of chronic health disorders.
The Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses was instrumental in creating the Persian Gulf War Veterans act of 1998. Congressman Lane Evans promised that the legislation would "improv[e] the way the Department of Veterans Affairs compensates Persian Gulf veterans, establishing effective oversight for the federal research agenda, addressing the need for identification of emerging technologies, and creating more effective health care treatment options for veterans."
"Dr. Arthur Caplan, a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses (PAC), recently told in 1998, "Gulf War Illness is a very real phenomena. No one on this committee should doubt that for a moment. What should be forthcoming…is an unwavering commitment from this Congress and this administration to provide the health and disability benefits to all those who became sick when they came back from the Gulf." In a November 15, 2005 statement by Susan H. Mayer, Chief Public Health and Environmental Hazards Officer at the US department of Veterans Affairs, defends the process by which the VA implements the scientific data which fuels the policy decisions implementing the Persian Gulf Act of 1998 and the interface with other legislation important to how soldiers with Gulf War Illness are treated:
"In addition to VA's implementation of the "Persian Gulf War Veterans Act of 1998" (Gulf War Veterans Act), VA is also charged with simultaneously implementing the provision of section 101 of the "Veterans Programs Enhancement Act of 1998" (Programs Enhancement Act), which establishes an overlapping framework for addressing issues relating to the health status of Gulf War veterans. Thus, our implementation of the former statute must take into account our responsibilities under the latter."
This Programs Enhancement act requires that the VA directly with the National Academy of Sciences NAS to review scientific literature with regard to proving the causes of Gulf War Illness. They are required to make regulations as how to proceed in treating illness. Almost conversely, The Gulf War Veterans Act requires the VA to find out whether illnesses are directly related to the causes of the war and to make recommendations directly to Congress about how to proceed treating illness. 
Her confusing statement that, "every effort must be made to reconcile the provisions of two statutes enacted under the circumstances presented here before resorting to rules of construction for giving one primacy over the other" suggests that there is still bureaucratic confusion that is inhibiting the free flow of policy to treatment
The VA's statement suggests that all efforts are being made to treat sick veterans of the Gulf war:
"VA's task in reviewing these reports is merely to decide whether additional presumptions of service connection are warranted by current scientific evidence for particular diseases. This process would not in any way limit the right of any veteran under existing claim procedures to establish service connection on a direct basis, and with VA's assistance, for any disease that could be related to their service in the 1991 Gulf War." However, reviewing Veteran Michael Wood's testimony in the same month, seems to paint a very different picture:
Michael Woods, quoted earlier in this article, complained in 2005 to congress, however, that the necessary paradigm changes had not been made within the medical community and medical bureaucracy:
"The Doctor I saw on my last visit even stated that she cannot believe that Veterans receive compensation for Gulf War illnesses because there is nothing really wrong with them that relates to there service. She even refused to fill the prescriptions that have kept my illnesses from continuing to decline.…Today's doctors are trained to diagnosis illnesses[;] Require that all VA Doctors be required to under go training that reflects current science." Susan Mather strongly indicates in her report the importance of staying on top of the most current research and the importance of reviewing both animal and human studies, as relying more heavily on one or the other can leave out important discoveries:
"Laboratory animals often do not respond to hazardous exposures in the same manner as humans and, therefore, it can be dangerous to predict clinical effects in humans based solely upon toxicological observations of laboratory animals." 
She recommended that a year 2000 report on Sarin gas relied heavily on animal studies, and a more well rounded review with human studies needs to be done. In a later review, the IOM (Institute of Medicine) was reported to having studied human research with regards to human studies as well. Her statement does indicate bureaucracy growth, but, obviously, bureaucracy is not evolving quickly enough to meet the needs of the veterans on the ground:
As mentioned earlier, as of November 2005, in the Department of Veterans affairs report: Gulf War Veterans Information System, 14,228 Undiagnosed Illness claims were processed on behalf of deployed vets to the Gulf, but 10,655 veterans were denied coverage. 
The evidence is there. Gulf veterans are still suffering from more than stress. And as the body of current research expands upon that of the past, no one will be able to deny that truth.

Comments

[esther pearlman]

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