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December 11 1996

LEADING ARTICLE

THE MINISTRY SYNDROME

Pesticide, paperwork and prevarication

More than six years after 50,000 British troops were sent to evict Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, and more than two years since questions were first asked in the House of Commons, Nicholas Soames, Armed Forces Minister, has confirmed that Parliament was about the use of . For most of this period, the suggestion that so-called Gulf War syndrome might have been triggered by the excessive use of organophosphate chemicals was dismissed because official records showed minimal quantities of those substances had been sent with our soldiers.

It now transpires that vast amounts of the material were acquired locally and deployed in abundance. Although any link between this discovery and the syndrome remains, for the moment, unproven, two matters are evident. First, that this practice was not conducive to the general good health of the Army. Secondly, that an appalling catalogue of blunders led ministers consistently to offer answers to their colleagues that were untrue. Neither is ever acceptable.

In his statement Mr Soames at least displayed all due humility. His pledge that the failures within the Ministry of Defence would be fully investigated, and that those civil servants responsible would be disciplined, is quite proper and must be met. Some external scrutiny is also needed for confidence to be restored. The House of Commons Select Committee on Defence, which has generally performed in a professional and bipartisan fashion, should feel no qualms in calling politicians, officials, and the military top brass before it and demanding explanations.

That such materials were being liberally used seems to have been no secret to those serving in the desert. That it escaped their superiors, because of "inadequate accounting procedures" and apparent "failures in communications" is little short of a disgrace. The ministers involved appear to have acted honourably enough, but the whole affair reflects badly on all concerned.

Mr Soames's further announcement that two epidemiological studies into the possible effect of these organophosphates will now take place is also overdue. It has been a year since the principle of such an inquiry was accepted. It has taken too long to decide upon the details of this research. The families of the 1,100 veterans who have experienced sickness since 1991, and who have often been treated brusquely by officialdom, are entitled to a fully funded and rigorous examination of this discovery.

The minister's comments that he would continue to co-operate as closely as possible with the on these questions is to be welcomed. Whether or not such concerns are justified, accusations that Gulf War syndrome has not been followed with proper attention are bound to increase in the light of what Mr Soames conceded yesterday. They cannot be permitted to persist. The Ministry of Defence has promised the most open approach possible. It must now deliver.

At this stage incompetence rather than conspiracy or cover-up looks the most likely explanation. That is not much compensation for those affected. Belated acknowledgement and apology is better than none at all but events can hardly be allowed to rest there. Whether there is a syndrome that can be traced directly to the Gulf conflict is obviously important but now only part of the issue. Parliament must fully satisfy itself that much wider irregularities have not been masked by the same procedures that prompted the Soames statement

December 11 1996

GULF WAR SYNDROME

Government 'misled' on Gulf War pesticides BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT

THE Government announced last night a wide-ranging œ1.3 million inquiry into Gulf War syndrome after ministers said that the Commons had been misled over the use of chemicals on troops during the conflict.

Defence Ministry civil servants who gave false information to ministers about the use of potentially dangerous pesticides during the Gulf War could face dismissal. As the research study into the syndrome was announced, Nicholas Soames, the Armed Forces Minister, said that a separate investigation had begun into the action of civil servants who had caused ministers to mislead the Commons for more than two years.

The health implications arising from widespread use of organophosphate pesticides against disease-carrying insects in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will be considered in the new study by the Medical Research Council into the Gulf War illnesses that have affected more than 1,100 British servicemen and women.

Mr Soames, backed by Admiral Anthony Revell, the Surgeon-General, and Professor Alan McGregor, chairman of the Medical Research Council's advisory committee on Gulf War illness, insisted yesterday that there was no common denominator linking the various illnesses to justify calling them a syndrome. However, the two years it took for ministers to be told the truth about the pesticide spraying has given ammunition to the ex-servicemen who have complained of a lack of information.

The investigation to find the guilty civil servants "and military officials" who supplied the "flawed" information about pesticide use to ministers will be headed by Richard Mottram, the ministry's Permanent Secretary.

Those who supplied the information that underplayed the use of pesticides are believed to be grade 7 officials. The first parliamentary answer that misled the Commons was given in July 1994 by Jeremy Hanley, then Armed Forces Minister. That flawed answer was then submitted repeatedly in reply to parliamentary questions in the Commons and the Lords until September 25 this year when ministers were given the true picture of pesticide use in the Gulf.

David Clark, Labour defence spokesman, said: "The way in which Parliament was misled demonstrates the ministry's lack of commitment to getting to the bottom of the problem."

In the Lords, Earl Howe, a junior Defence Minister who has admitted inadvertently misleading Parliament on the use of organophosphate pesticides in the Gulf, denied any negligence. A Defence Ministry team set up in October to investigate the use of pesticides found that huge stocks were bought in the Gulf, usually with Arabic instructions and no information in English on the ingredients.

The new epidemiological research, which will take three years, will involve two studies, each comparing the health records of 3,000 service people who went to the Gulf with those of 3,000 who did not. Professor Nicola Cherry, of the School of Epidemiology and Health Sciences at Manchester University, will try to determine whether there was an excess of ill-health among service people who served in the Gulf.

Dr Patricia Doyle, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, will study the reproductive health of Gulf War ex-servicemen and their children.

Mr Soames also said that he was publishing a full account of the vaccination programme for troops. This information was previously classified. He acknowledged concern that vaccinations might have contributed to some of the reported sickness, although he said: "There is at present no evidence to support this."

He also announced that much closer links would be forged with the Americans who are also carrying out research into the illness.

December 11 1996

GULF WAR SYNDROME

Every British army tent in the Gulf was doused in pesticide BY MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT

THE widespread use of organophosphate pesticides to kill disease-carrying insects in the Gulf was added to the long list of potential causes of the so-called Gulf War syndrome only two months ago.

Until the Ministry of Defence discovered that the pesticides had been sprayed liberally over every British Army tent in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, suspicion had focused on the collection of vaccines given to all servicemen and women to counter chemical and biological warfare.

The injections included antidotes for anthrax poisoning, botulism and bubonic plague. Service personnel in the front line were also given tablets called nerve agent pretreatment sets.

Those who were unwell when they returned from the Gulf talked of feeling ill after being given the injections. When the MoD admitted that there had been no long-term research into the effects of a cocktail of vaccines given over a short period and the veterans demanded more information about the content of the injections, the ministry said such details were classified.

Fears that the 1,100 or so veterans suffering from various illnesses had been affected by Iraqi chemicals proved unfounded. President Saddam Hussein did not use his chemical and biological weapons after he was warned by the US-led coalition that any such attack would lead to a formidable response - a threat widely assumed to refer to a retaliatory strike with chemical or even tactical nuclear weapons. Some chemical releases did occur, however, when American aircraft bombed Iraqi chemical weapons plants, although the MoD said British troops were too far away to be affected.

The sudden "discovery" in October that pesticides had been used on a far larger scale than previously acknowledged led to an urgent investigation by the MoD. An organophosphate pesticide investigation team was formed and its report was published yesterday.

Personnel who sprayed pesticides containing organophosphates should have worn protective clothing but there were reports of large-scale spraying by unprotected soldiers, even over tented canteens where soldiers were eating.

Large doses of organophosphates, which contain diazinon, acknowleged to be a dangerous substance, were used in sheep-dipping and have caused illness among farmers. The MoD team discovered that 4 Brigade had used an unidentified pesticide that could have contained 60 per cent diazinon.

The MoD had said the amount of organophosphates used in the Gulf spraying was small. Yesterday, though, officials said that in future this type of pesticide spraying would be banned.

The pesticide investigation team was given only two months to complete its report. One of the principal aims was to find out why the MoD seemed to have been unaware that pesticides had been used on such a large scale until late 1996.The team found that although it was known that pesticide was sent to the Gulf, no accurate records were kept of the huge stocks bought locally by individual units.

The pesticides were used because there was concern about the hygiene threat to British troops from flies. Plans for dealing with the threat changed when the number of troops sent to the Gulf doubled. The ingredients and instructions of pesticides bought locally were written only in Arabic.

December 11 1996

GULF WAR SYNDROME

US Nobel laureate changes his mind on chemical link FROM TOM RHODES IN WASHINGTON

THE Pentagon, under growing pressure from Gulf War veterans over the possible exposure of American troops to chemical weapons, said yesterday that it was investigating the use of pesticides during the conflict. "It is one of the areas we are looking into to discover whether such agents may be associated with illnesses reported by our soldiers after the Gulf," a Pentagon official said. At the same time, the American Nobel prizewinner who first discounted links between chemical weapons and illnesses reported by Gulf War veterans said yesterday that evidence released only this year by the Pentagon had forced him to change his mind. Joshua Lederberg, a scientist and former president of the Rockefeller Institute, said the Pentagon had failed to supply details of an incident shortly after the war in which American combat engineers destroyed an Iraqi ammunition depot.

The explosion at the sprawling Kamisiyah centre in southern Iraq had potentially exposed thousands of troops to nerve gas.

Mr Lederberg told The New York Times that there should be a new investigation into Gulf War syndrome to determine whether low doses of nerve gas could cause long-term illness. "We didn't get all the information and I don't know where it was," said Mr Lederberg, who made no claim that the Pentagon had tried to mislead his investigating panel. "The intelligence units in particular are very jealous of anything they hold. They particularly defy access to their raw data. It's not surprising that there are goof-ups of this sort from time to time."