Many thanks to DStormMom for typing and fowarding this article The Vet Center
Accounts of the mystery sickness called Gulf War Syndrome or
Persian Gulf Illness read like unfolding chapters in a story
that could have been written by Michael Crichton, Tom clancy -
or the Three Stooges- Unlike Joe Klein, the authors of this
human tragedy may remain anonymous. Even the ending may never
be known.
But current and former soldiers are getting sicker by
the day. Treatment systems in military and other government
facilties are being called inadequate and confusion down the
chain of command is adding to the misery of thousands of
American vets and their families.
Backpedaling by the Defense Department about whether
soldiers were exposed to biological-and chemical-warfare agents
during the Persian Gulf War, and the disappearance of 700,000
service-related immunization records add story lines reeking of
conspiracies, coverups and top-secret intrigue.
Meanwhile, the sick become sicker,and morejoin the ranks
daily. By the hundreds.
Doctors, nurses and medics, immunologists and toxicoligists,
both military and civilian have come to Insight with tales of
outrage, anguish, guilt, suspicion and previously undisclosed
information that provides new and deeply puzzling data that all
hope will lead to answers and treatment for America's gulf-war
veterans. Most puzzling is the fact that the sick involve soldiers
from the war era who deployed - as well as those who never left
the U.S. soil or entered any theater of conflict.
It is from this last clue - sickness among both deployed
and non-deployed that we begin. If unwritten chapters of this
mystery confirm the suspicions of the health-care specialists,
secretive medical experiments such as the Tuskegee syphilis studies
and the live nuclear-radiation tests on U.S. servicmen will pale
in comparison. This is no outer space Andromeda Strain, but there
is grave concern it could involve a mad-scientist experiment gone
awry - maybe even one involving the AIDS virus.
Before proceeding, however, bear in mind the first maxim
of investigative journalism and research science: Never leap to
conclusions. That said, a small but important element of the
unfolding mystery provides startling new information about where
to look and what to look for, who is responsible and what to do
to help sick veterans get better.
This new information emerges after a four month investigation
by Insight into origins of gulf war sickness and subsequent laboratory tests conducted on hundreds of blood samples taken from soldiers - those sick and those showing no signs of sickness. The analysis of these results, some of which have been separately reconfirmed (though tests continue), show peculiar antibody levels for an experimental adjuvant compound known as squalene. This compound, which is not approved for internal human use other than in highly controlled experiments, has been studied on animals and humans in recent years as a promising tool to help boost the body's immune
system against such illnesses as influenza, herpes simplex... and
HIV. In fact, it is from the experimental HIV clinical trials
run by private firms - and in conjunction with high level
goverment research projects including those by the U.S. military -
that the presence of squalene in the bodies of the sick gulf-war
veterans takes on the potentially fiendish qualities of a nightmare.
It is important to note that no such connection has been
made by any reputable medical, scientific or government official.
In fact, it vehemently has been denied that experimental HIV
immunization tests ever were expanded either to a general
population of sick people or a general population of military
personnel. The reason for such caution is evident: Just because
squalene antibodies have been found to exist in test samples
of a few hundred gulf-war veterans suffering from the Persian
Gulf War syndrome does not mean they correlate to currently
known HIV experimental vaccine tests using the same adjuvant
compound.
That said, questions posed by Insight to top officials
at the Pentagon; the Army, Navy; Air Force and Marine Corps;
the military reserves; the National Guard; Walter Reed Army
Medical Center; the Veterans Administration; and the National
Institutes of Health (Including the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases) remain unanswered. Such
questions have included the following:
° Why do antibodies for the experimental
immune-system affecting adjuvant known as squalene - not approved
for human use beyond highly controlled experimental uses - show
up in the bloodstreams of gulf-war veterans who are sick with a
variety of illnesses seemingly unrelated thus far to any known
biological or chemical agent?
° What inoculation was administered to gulf-war
veterans that may have contained squalene as an adjuvant for an
immunization program?
° Why have thousands of gulf-war veterans told
nvestigators that the veterans had been administered shots the
contents of which have not been identified?
° Why have hundreds of military doctors, nurses and
medics told investigators that they were ordered to administer
shots of secret contents to soldiers and then ordered to destroy
the records?
° Where are the hundreds of thousands of pages of shot
records and invoices for the secret contents - that must be kept
and maintained by the military as a matter of law?
Failure to answer such questions is certain to raise
concerns about conspiracies and secret operations gone haywire.
When answers are evasive, transparently dishonest or stonewalled,
even bigger trouble is on the way. In this case, me obfuscation
by authorities have fed growing mistrust among veterans and
congressional investigators who have found it all but impossible
to pierce the military and intelligence smoke screens surround-
ing the unusual illnesses suffered by gulf-war veterans.
Perhaps because they have no hard answers, the DoD and
the VA have been responding to massive complaints from many
quarters about what appears to many to be a containment operation.
This has raised concern about the integrity of these institutions
among veterans, congressional leaders and even the top brass.
Insight also has encountered considerable obstruction
within the bureaucracy at the VA and the DoD,but once top
officials were tracked down, they seemed genuinely concerned
and earnest. Nonetheless, key questions that drive so many of
the conspiracy theories remain unanswered. Chief among these:
Where are the shot records and why are so many soldiers adamant
about having received secret shots to which nobody officially
will admit? Ahd when asked how and why squalene has appeared
in the blood of the sick veterans, DoD and VA officials say
they have no clue. They also say the compound should not be
there, and that if it proves to be present they'll be
surprised. Nonetheless, Timothy Gerrity one of the leaders of
the investigation into the gulf-war illnesses, tells Insight
the government will investigate. Such a move no doubt would be
wise, since congressional oversight panels plan full and open
hearings on the squalene revelations in this Insight report.
This mIght be more impressive if this were the first
time the squalene theory had been caled to the attention of
the highest levels of government - including the Clinton
White House and the top echelons of U.S. military and civilian
bruss. In fact, the theory first was advanced publicly by
Pamela Asa a Memphis immunologist specializingin autoimmune
diseases and symptomatology. The military and civilian
authorities dismissed the "concept" as unfounded pending
independent analysis -- which never was ordered. Why neither
the DoD nor the VA took the initiative to explore these theories,
advanced by Asa and several other well-known specialists, is
difficult to determine.
Asa has treated hundreds of veterans showing various
signs of auto-immune like diseases and suggested such symptoms
could be due to something called "adjuvants disease." Testing
this theory only required evidence that such an adjuvant was
present and, if so, determining how it got there. For example,
had there been an immununization using squalene for some
unknown medical threat; perhaps even some chemically or
biologically engineered HIV-like bug that might attack the
auto-immune system in ways similar to those being reported
from vets by the tens of thousands.
Working with a variety of scientists, including
toxicologists, cardiologists, oncologists, AIDS specialists,
immunologsts and military and civilIan specialists treating
gulf war veterans, Insight has discovered the something that
wasn't supposed to be there -- the telltale something that
the government officially has denied.
Indeed, Army Col. Ed Koenigsberg, director of the
DoD's Persian Gulf War Veterans' Iliness Investigation Team',
testified before the President's Advisory Committee on Persian
Gulf Veterans Disease in October 1995 that the Asa theory
was not plausible because one, no adjuvant other than aluminum
adjuvants (also called alum-based adjuvants) had been used on
U.S soldiers and two, there is no such thing as adjuvants disease.
Although the only U.S.-approved adjuvant is alum-based,
others -- such as squalene - have been developed and used on
laboratory animals..and experimentally on humans in
government-approved tests. Adjuvants act to rev up the immune
arsenals, so they have been of special interest, for example,
in searching for a way to deal with HIV.
A drawback of adjuvants, however (and a matter of
concern and debate within scientific and medical circles for
years), is that they can trigger immune responses that go out
of control or generate immune reactions that attack the patient
from within. Notwithstanding the debate, science has determined
that only in the most advanced and careful experimentaltests may
adjuvants such as squalene and a related polymer compound known
as squalane -- be used on human guinea pigs.
Except for work with a few cutting edge pharmaceuticals
(and then only with approval from federal authorities), only
government agencies are involved in huan experimental tests
using adjuvants. Agencies authorized to conduct human experiments
include the National Institutes of Health Infectious Diseases
and Allergy Centerr and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center,
to name but two. In fact, the NIH and the Walter Reed facilities
have been experimenting since at least the late eighties with
immunizations that might combat the terrible scourge of HIV.
Typically, the experimental "immunizations" are mixed with
adjuvants - like alum, squalene and squalane liquids - to
provide a boost to the experimental vaccines.
When the theory first was raised one of the immunizations
and an adjuvent could be gulf-war sickness, the mIlitary said
it was impossible - as did medical authorities at the VA and
civilians at the White House. But, curiously, the military
commissioned a study to review adjuvants disease, which
supposedly does not exist, and immunizations. The results were
released in March 1996 - six months after Koenigsberg testified
before the President's Advisory committee. In this report,
prepared by the U.S Army Medical Research and Material Comwand,
or USAMRMC, the "investigation team" concluded that the only
vaccines and immunizations administered to soldiers were
publicly known and were alum-based, that nothing but alum was
used as an adjuvent and, therefore, the theory was faulty.
"The basic hypothesis and supporting evidence presented ...
are flawed or inaccurate. Available information strongly argues
against (this) hypothesis:
"1) All vaccines used during the GW have a long history
of safety and all, except BotTox which was used under an IND,
were licensed by the FDA at the time of the Gulf War.
"2) Since the standard immunization series is given
to individuals in basic and advanced training, only a
relatively small number of additional vaccines were given during
deployment to the Persian Gulf, and the previous use of these
vaccines has not resulted in problems similar to those reported
by GW veteran's
"3) All vaccine lots are individually licensed for safety
and efficinacy. The vaccines used, therefore, are unlikely to be
contaminated or of low quality.
"4) The only adjuvant used in the vaccines given to GW
personnel was alum. Alum is an FDA-approved adjuvant with a long
history of safety. It has been given to millions of people world-
wide without significant problems. No experimental adjuvants were
used by the military.
"5) There are no reports of alum causing HAD [Human Adjuvants
Disease] or any other chronic disease.
"6) There are no teports of chronic inflammatory responses
at the sites of immunization with vaccines containing alum as would
be expected if HAD were to occur
"7) Several recent studies (13 reports to date) have failed
to show any association between silicone-gel implants and increased
incidence of connective tissue disease. There is little supporting
evidence, other than anecdotal reports, that silicone-gel implants
cause an increase in connective tissue diseases or HAD-"
The last item - No. 7- refers to theories advanced by several
scientists including Asa, that svmptoms experienced by gulf-war
veterans appear strikingly similar to those experienced by women
who have had breast augmentation with silicone-gel implants.
Autoimmune-type illnesses have been reported - but contested -
at higher rates in women with breast implants than those 'without
silicone-gel augmentation.
The theoretical coenection is simple. Silicone possesses
adjuvant like qualities and thus could be causing or at least
contributing to illnesses reported by women with breast implants.
Because symptomatologies experienced by gulf-war vets in peculiarly
high numbers resemble similar medical maladies associated with
silicone-gel implants, this theory goes, perhaps what 'veterans
are experiencing is an adjuvant like reaction to something
introduced into their bodies.
In an appendix to the USAMRMC report, an immunologist at
Johns Hopkins University hired by the military rejected the
adjuvant theory as flawed because, the claims go, there is no
such thing as HAD and nothing butalum-based vaccines were adminis-
tered to the veterans. An excerpt from this unknown immunologist's
report reads, in part:
"Veterans returning from the Persian Gulf area have
manifested a number of symptoms and illnesses. They include both
physical and psychological disorders. There is no evidence
and no reason to believe, however, that all of these diseases
have a single etiology. Persuasive evidence, such as that
assembled by the Institute of Medicine, shows that this syndrome
represents a number of unrelated disorders with no evidence of
common origin. Studies have not yet shown that these Illnesses,
separately or collectively, are more prevalent among Gulf
War veterans than appropriate controls. As such, the military
contractor concluded, the concept of an unknown adjuvant causing
the gulf-war vets' illnesses "is based on a series of erroneous
assumptions and unsupported conjectures.
Yes, a theory remains a theory until it is proved. But
so broad and dismissive a conclusion based on so little evidence
sounds like propaganda to scientists -- especially from an
unnamed contract source in a footnote. Little wonder that dozens
of health-care professionals interviewed by Insight during a
four month investigation have expressed deep distrust and
frustration with the military and the VA. "I just got fed up
with the lies and the deceit," says one- "They (the government)
are refusing to deal with these people and instead of doing their
jobs and finding out what in the hell is medically wrong, they are
letting them go or forcing them out by saying it's all in their
heads or they're making it up."
This source, who remains in government service at a senior level and thus refuses to be further identified, is far from alone in expressing anger and fear about how the DOD and the VA have handled both the investigation and treatment of suffering gulf-war personnal. The frustration centers on an alleged systemic failure in the U.S. government to explore not just the causes of the symptoms but also the treatment of the sick. The fear revolves around censure and sanctions imposed on those who have spoken out-- either publicly or through the chain of command -- and who, in turn, have been punished. Spokespeople for the DoD and VA deny such charges, say they have been addressed openly and deny there is a coverup or conspiracy to silence anyone who may know of one or believes one exists.
But as the General Accounting Office, or GAO, recently
concluded in an exhaustive study - the third in an ongoing series
by that investigative watchdog agency of Congress, the government
has faiIed its soldiers. And this despite wellover $40 million spent
or allocated, nearly 100 studies (four-fifths of which are
incomplete or not scheduled for completion until after the year 2000)
and hundreds of personnel assigned to probe the gulf-war syndrome.
"Six years after the war, little is conclusively known
about the causes of Gulf War veterans' illnesses," according to
the GAO. "None of the comments we received provide evidence to
challenge our principal findings and conclusions that (I) DoD and
VA have no means to systematically determine whether symptomatic
Gulf War veterans are better or worse today than when they were
first examined and (2) ongoing epidemlological research will not
provide precise, accurate, and conclusive answers regarding the
causes of the Gulf war veterans' ilineases."
And, according to the GAO, in most cases, examinations of
any significance did not occur until after 1994 - and then only
because of public and congressional pressures to prod a lethargic
bureaucracy into action,
Besides criticizing the DoD and VA, the GAO also blasted
the President's Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses,
empaneled with much fanfare a year ago, for failing critically to
examine information supplied to it by military intelligence and other
government medical sources and adopted without much review in the
December final report. And, GAO said of criticisms, "All of the
comments we received seek to shift the onus of identifying and
substantiating the causes of Gulf Way illnesses to us, when in fact
we merely reviewed the sufficiency and persuasiveness of the evidence
behind the administration's conclusions. In some instances, we
found it to be weak or open to alternative interpretation. We
believe the burden of proof is still on those who have made
the assertions about the likely and unlikely causes of the illnesses.
For example, GAO Investigators found that much research had
been conducted on exposure to stress, but other hypotheses received
scant support. "In its Final Report, IOM [the Institute of Medicine)
discusses the evidence for a number of disease hypotheses, including
multiple-chemical sensitivity and organophosphate induced delayed
neurophathy (OPIDN). IOM found the evidence for none of the hypotheses
to be highly compelling when it conducted the review, but it
nevertheless highlighted the importance of exploring all possible
avenues to increase our knowledge of such illnesses and to reduce
suffering and disability. Nonetheless, aside from studies
examining stress-related symptoms, relatively few studies have
been supported to evaluate alternative disease hypotheses.
For example, prior to October 1996, only one study focused on the
health effects of potential exposure to chemical-warfare agents.
While multiple studies of the role of stress in the veterans'
illnesses have been supported with federal research dollars, some
other hypotheses have been pursued largely outside the federal
research program," said the GAO.
In fact, it is just such outside research, conducted almost
exclusively without federal tax dollars and in private laboratories
at prestigious university hospitals, that the concerns or call them
theories - involving the illinesses of the gulf war soldiers may have
made some breakthroughs. Besides Asa, Garth and Nancy Nicolson, two
highly respected and widely published scientists known for their
medical studies into a wide range of immunological, cancerous and
autoimmune diseases, have advanced a separate theory of what maybe can
tributing to the ill health of some of the veterans.
Specifically, the Nicolsons believe that acme vets suffer
from diseases of biological, not chemical or radiological, origins.
This theory centers on the presence of an uncommon infection of a
microorganism known as mycoplasma fermentans (incognitus strain).
It is a slow-growing mycoplasma discovered deep inside white blood
cells of about one-half of sick gulf-war soldiers. Such mycoplasmas,
according to the Nicolsons, may produce unusual autoimmunelike signs
that could account for symtoms experienced by many sick vets. The
origin of this mycoplasma could be from vaccines (multiple vaccination
immuno-suppression), overseas sand and water, plumes from bombing
chemical and test subjects never served in the military.
We have found soldiers who are not sick that do not have
the antibodies," says one of the laboratory researchers contacted
by Insight. "We found soldiers who never left the United States,
but who got shots. who are sick- and they have squalene in their
systems. We found people who served overseas, in various parts
of the desert that are sick who have squalene- And we found people
who served in the desert but were civilians who never got these shots
[administered by the U.S.] who are not sick and do not have squalene."
In short, says one of only a few senior government officials
familiar with the blood tests for squalene: "I can't tell you why
it's there, but there it is. And I can tell you this, too: The
sicker an individual, the higher the level of antibodies for this
(squalene) stuff." Echoing similar comments, a high-level DoD official
who is involved in investigating gulf-war illnesses, says: "I'm
not telling you that squalene is making these people sick, but I am
telling you that the sick ones have it in them. It's probably whatever
was used with the squalene that's doing it, or in combination with
the squalene. You find that, and you may be on to something.
And according to to government sources, the Nicolsons theory
about mycoplasmas appears to have compelled the DOD and the VA to adopt
some of their methods of detection and therapies to help the sick
soldiers. The Nicolsons don't know how the HIV-like microrganisms got
into the soldiers, but because they have discovered it, they're
convinced its presence proves something bizarre has occurred.
So, is the presence of squalene, HIV-like mycoplasmas and
unusual sicknesses in these vets that are not tied to known biological
and chemical agents coincidental? Or is there a common factor such
as an experiment or experiments gone awry?
Spokespeople from the VA, NIH, Walter Reed, Ft. Detrick,
the DoD and various armed services say no such experirnents -
for AIDS, say - were conducted on military personnel. But when asked
why squalene is showing up in the blood of the sick, they either
clam up or say they cannot explain it.
As GAO investigators and concerned congressmen are saying, if
there's nothing to hide, then why hasn't the government explored the
laboratory tests that are finding something that isn't supposed to
be there?
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