British plan probe as pesticides and vaccines blamed

ASSOCIATED PRESS            

Copied from Seattle P-I                                 

Dec.11,1996

LONDON - Britain announced a $2 million study yesterday to investigate the source of ailments plaguing veterans of the Persian Gulf War, including muscle aches, fatigue and sleeplessness, dubbed the Gulf War syndrome.

In a statement to Parliament, Armed Forces Minister Nicholas Soames said two leading independent scientists will lead studies into whether the veterans are in worse health than they would be if they had not served in the gulf.

They also will investigate whether veterans suffer difficulties having children and whether such youngsters have an unusually high number of birth defects, he said.

The governmen retains "an open mind" about the Gulf War syndrome and is "determined to get to the bottom of it," Soames said.

Last month, more than 1,000 British veterans who claim their health has deteriorated following the war said they will sue the government for compensation. They claim they were poisoned by a combination of pesticides and anti-nerve gas tablets.

During the war, allied soldiers were given a powerful mixture of vaccines against polio, hepatitis B, anthrax, yellow fever and cholera. They also took tablets to counteract the effects of chemical and biological warfare.

Soames said yesterday that a government investagation has found that organophosphate pesticides, cited by lawyers for some veterans as the cause of a number of ailments, were used in the gulf "on a much wider scale than previously reported."

The Ministry of Defense acknowledged earlier this year that pesticide poisoning could have played a role in symptoms such as memory loss, aches and diarrhea.

BACK