BBC 19 February 1999.

A government defence minister has agreed to investigate figures suggesting two Gulf War veterans commit suicide every month.

The Countess of Mar told the House of Lords a further 200 former UK soldiers who fought in the war were in prison for crimes that could be linked to mood swings. The crossbench peer has long campaigned for further investigation of the symptoms dubbed Gulf War syndrome.

Defence Minister of State Lord Gilbert responded to her figures by promising to follow them up.

He said: "As far as your statistics are concerned, I certainly don't challenge them.

"But this is the first time I have heard them and I would want to look into them closely before I confirm their detail."

Lady Mar spoke at Lords question time on the treatment of soldiers for post traumatic stress disorder.

She said the symptoms shared had many similarities with illnesses such as organo-phosphate poisoning.

Psychiatric cause

As a farmer, Lady Mar says her own health may have been damaged by organo-phosphate poisons.

She told the House of Lords: "There are at least two suicides a month among the Gulf veterans and there are well over 200 former Gulf veterans in prison for offences which may well be associated with mood changes, which are also associated with OP poisoning."

She urged doctors treating Gulf War veterans not to immediately assume the cause of the illness was psychiatric.

They should "eliminate any organic cause before they go to a psychiatric course", she said.

Lord Gilbert said consultant psychiatrists should consider the possibility of physical causes if there was "a clinical reason for doing so".

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