Gulf War Troops 'Brains Damaged' (London Times Article)

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The Times

London

June 20, 2002

Gulf War Troops' Brains 'Damaged'

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By , Defence Editor

BRAIN scans on Gulf War veterans in the United States who are

suffering from debilitating diseases may have resolved why

130,000 US and British servicemen and women complain of mystery

illnesses.

Research discovered that disabled veterans of the 1991 war

suffered chemical changes in their brains, similar to the onset

of Parkinson's and Huntington's disease.

The findings of the research, which have not yet been published,

were revealed yesterday at the second day of a US congressional

hearing into so-called Gulf War syndrome, being held in the

Palace of Westminster. British veterans who were present looked

shocked.

After detailed medical examination of one battalion of 249

soldiers from the 700,000 US troops who were deployed to the

Gulf, Haley of the Southwestern Medical Centre at the

University of Texas found that the brain cellular structure of

the sick veterans had been damaged.

Speaking in a committee room of the House of Lords, Dr Haley

said he had uncovered evidence of " chemical disturbance " in

the brain. A similar study of British veterans by Goran Jamal,

consultant physician at Imperial College School of Medicine,

London University, which also revealed brain damage, had been

ignored by the authorities, Dr Haley said.

His own research, he said, had also shown that Gulf War veterans

were two to three times more likely to suffer from motor neurone

disease than other people.

The damage to the brain was likely to have been caused by the

use of organophosphate pesticides to kill desert flies and lice

at the American and British tented camps in Saudi Arabia; the

anti-nerve gas tablets and vaccines given to frontline troops

and inhalation of chemicals after the Americans bombed an Iraqi

chemical weapons store.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-332325,00.html