All news on this page courtesy of the The Telegraph Newspaper, London, UK

05/April/1998

MoD attacked over inquiry into Gulf illness

By Andrew Gilligan and Rob Evans

A LEADING member of a Government panel investigating "Gulf war syndrome" has criticised Ministry of Defence investigations as "disappointingly lacking in co-ordination", too theoretical and communicating too little with Gulf veterans.

John Reid, the Armed Forces minister, made an unusual personal intervention to defend the MoD's work after the criticisms by Professor Malcolm Hooper, the veterans' representative on the panel. Prof Hooper, professor of medicinal chemistry at Sunderland University, has circulated a paper to veterans saying that the remit of his committee is "far too narrow, begs too many questions about Gulf War syndrome and will not do justice to the imperatives of the present situation".

He said that his committee's lack of information on key matters was a "crucial weakness". In an interview with The Telegraph, Prof Hooper said: "There is a plethora of different bodies at work of which ours is only one. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing and it could lead to disaster."

Prof Hooper said that there were "obvious marks of censorship on some recovered medical records" and an "admitted loss of medical records" which "leads me to the conclusion that any epidemiological studies will be seriously compromised". Senior MoD officials said they had no evidence to back up the censorship claim.

Dr Reid, who has made investigations of Gulf war illnesses one of his main priorities since taking office last year, rejected Prof Hooper's criticisms, saying: "We have put more effort into this than anything except the defence review. The reason I haven't left this up to academics and medics alone was that that was what was done for six years before May - and not enough was done." Thirty-five MoD staff are working full-time on the issue and Dr Reid said he held regular meetings with veterans.

Prof Hooper's committee, the only one with members nominated by Gulf war veterans, has the remit of overseeing research into possible links between veterans' illnesses and the "cocktail" of drugs and anti-nerve agents taken by troops. Prof Hooper said: "Priorities must be adopted that address the aspects of Gulf war syndrome seen in the troops, or their health will degenerate even further than at present and in some cases they may die."