All news on this page courtesy of the The Times & Sunday Times Newspapers, London, UK
THE Ministry of Defence (MoD) has bowed to pressure and will this week announce an inquiry into deformities suffered by children born to Gulf war veterans.
The decision follows a campaign by The Sunday Times which highlighted parents' worries and mounting concern among senior doctors and military chiefs that the MoD was failing to take seriously the risk of contamination from modern warfare.
In America, where 300 veterans have reported children with serious deformities they believe may be linked to the war, the government is already funding three comprehensive studies into birth defects. Clusters of thalidomide-style deformities have been recorded among children born to American veterans and there have been 12 cases of a rare syndrome linked to exposure to toxins.
The go-ahead for a British inquiry five years after the war began was given last Friday by Nicholas Soames, the armed forces minister. The previous day he had met a team of specialists brought in after his department was strongly criticised by the Commons defence select committee for its failure to act decisively.
The seven doctors, including Professor Sir Colin Berry, an expert in birth defects, strongly advised further research. They were supported by senior military doctors.
The investigation is expected to consist of two surveys. The first, overseen by the Medical Research Council, will be an epidemiological study to establish whether the incidence of serious defects among babies born to veterans is higher than the 1% among the general population.
The study will compare the records of servicemen who went to the Gulf with those who were not deployed. Letters went out last week to solicitors and veterans' groups urging them to put sufferers in touch with military doctors. The other survey, likely to involve the Royal College of Physicians, will look at the possible effects on the unborn of a combination of chemical injections, exposure to toxins and stress.
More than 70 families have come forward who suspect a link between the cocktail of injections, anti-nerve agents and pesticides used to protect the troops and defects in their children. Babies have been born with vital organs missing or malformed, limb deformities or heart defects. One couple with no family history of congenital abnormalities have two daughters with serious heart deformities and have been warned not to have another child.
Other couples report multiple miscarriages or abortions carried out after deformities were detected. One mother underwent a termination late in her pregnancy when it was discovered that her baby had no limbs.
Worried families said they were greatly relieved by the decision to investigate. "We don't know if our son's heart problems were caused by the Gulf war, but there could be a link and we daren't have another child until we know," said Gaynor Cullen, 26, from Kirkcaldy in Fife.
Connor, her 15-month-old son, was born with a blocked artery and needed emergency surgery. Her husband Ian, 27, received the cocktail of injections and tablets while serving in the Gulf.
More than 50,000 servicemen were given 16 injections over short periods and took powerful anti-nerve gas tablets. They were also exposed to chemicals used in pesticides, gases from burning oil wells, and there have been unconfirmed reports that biological and chemical weapons were recorded in the theatre of war.
Since the first reports of Gulf war
illnesses three years ago, the MoD has refused to recognise a specific syndrome. Although it has acknowledged ailments among some veterans, it has indicated that it believes many of the symptoms were stress-induced. Its critics, however, believe ministers and civil servants are afraid of mass compensation claims should a link be established.
The ministry has pre viously complained that its attempts to draw any conclusions have been hampered by the fact that only 350 of the 680 veterans claiming to have sickness linked to Gulf service have agreed to have an MoD medical.
Doctors last night urged the ministry to include the latest clinical tests in its medicals. Peter Behan, a professor of neurology at the Southern General hospital in Glasgow, criticised it for failing to respond to letters he sent after his tests had identified neurological damage among a group of men who served in the same unit: "These men were very sick indeed. Their memory was impaired, they had difficulty with simple mental arithmetic and even naming everyday things."
Last night the British Legion called for co-operation with the American studies, saying it feared the MoD would keep its work separate in case the American findings made the government liable to pay compensation.
| Top of Page | Current Section Index |
|---|