Gulf War Illnesses

Lord Morris of Manchester Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Morris of Manchester]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, in addressing the problems and needs of veterans of the first Gulf War with still undiagnosed illnesses, they will be taking into account the findings of the congressionally mandated and funded US Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, particularly those on exposures to pyridostigmine bromide and organophosphates.

[Lord Morris of Manchester]

My Lords, this debate is about the brave men and women, veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf War, now in broken health with still undiagnosed illnesses, who were prepared to lay down their lives in our service in the most toxic war in western military history, and the bereaved families of those who did so.

I am most grateful to the noble Lords who will be following me in the debate and am especially glad to see here the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Craig of Radley. I know that the House well understands my admiration of the inestimable value of their services to Gulf War veterans.

The noble Lord, Lord Astor, has my congratulations on his well merited elevation to the government Front Bench. For more than 12 years until today, we have sung from the same hymn sheet on Gulf War illnesses; and I can assure him that, even if today his hymn sheet varies somewhat from mine, I know he will act with all his customary integrity.

The timeliness of our debate is undoubted anywhere in your Lordships’ House. Indeed, in this 20th year since the end of the first Gulf War and with the Ministry of Defence still in conflict with the afflicted and bereaved over claims for more adequate support, the debate is seen as long overdue.

I have non-pecuniary interests to declare as Honorary Parliamentary Adviser to the Royal British Legion—the authentic voice of the ex-service community—and the National Vice-President of the War Widows’ Association. A further interest I must declare is that, in January 2002, the United States Congress co-opted me, uniquely for a non-American, to serve on its committee of inquiry into Gulf War illnesses, from whose deliberations federal funding of the congressionally-mandated Research Advisory Committee (RAC) on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses ensued. That is why I was asked to speak at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington DC at the launch of the RAC's historic report in November 2008. It explains also why my continuing links with executive Government, Members of Congress and institutions like the US Institute of Medicine (IoM) remain strong.

Those links are of high relevance today when the Ministry of Defence is in denial not only of the IoM's own statement of the facts about its interest in the RAC's findings, but also of easily accessible factual information on the new US Administration's positive response to the RAC's report. Even the announcement by the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs, General Eric Shinseki, on improved healthcare and benefits for veterans and the fundamental change in the direction of US policy on Gulf War illnesses, is ignored by the MoD. Yet when the RAC’s report was published in November 2008, notwithstanding its huge importance to British veterans, the MoD stated and it was reported to the House that it could not comment on the report until the IoM had peer-reviewed its findings. We were further told that the IoM’s review would not be published until February 2010 and that the MoD would then consider both the RAC's report and the IoM's fictional peer review.

This unconscionable delay was in spite of the RAC's deeply disturbing finding on the real, serious and potentially deadly effects of neurotoxic exposures to which almost all coalition troops were subjected. That they would be publishing a peer-review of the RAC's report was at once flatly denied by the IoM, who had already stated that they were not and would not be peer reviewing the RAC's report. It would of course have been preposterous and highly questionable legally for the IoM to undertake a peer-review of a report from a congressionally-mandated and funded committee packed with eminent medical scientists, all leaders in their fields and based on 1,840 scientific communications, the vast majority of which had appeared in peer-reviewed journals, most of the remainder having been included because of the repute of their authors.

Apologists say that the IoM had in fact been asked ministerially to undertake a peer-review of the RAC's findings and that the MoD was basing itself on a reported announcement that James Peake, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs in the Bush administration, was referring the report to the IoM; but within days of his reported announcement, Secretary Peake had become the out-going Secretary: not just a lame duck but a dead one; and crouching behind a dead duck is not the most dignified posture from which to conduct policy-making on new help for war veterans in pressing need. Of course the MoD could have clarified the position by making a single telephone call to the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

The IoM's reaction to the MoD's version of its role vis-à-vis the RAC's report had been swift and sharp. It came from Roberta Wedge, the institute's senior future programmes officer, whose statement left no one in any doubt about how offensive they found that version of their role. Dr Judith A Salerno, the executive director of the IoM, had already told me in a letter on its role that the IoM had,

“not been tasked with a review of the RAC report”,

that it had not been nor would it be conducting a peer review and ipso facto would not be publishing a review of the report as stated by the MoD, in February 2010 or at any other date.

Meanwhile General Shinseki, leaving aside the keen controversy about the falsification of the IoM's role, made it plain that he had not been and would not be waiting for any comment from the IoM. Rather, having carefully studied the RAC's findings, he had acted and, in the view of Gulf veterans here, so should we have done. Shinseki had ordered an immediate review of the files of many thousands of Gulf veterans to establish, among other purposes, to what neurotoxic exposures they had been subjected and he spoke of,

“challenging all the assumptions made for 20 years”,

and,

“historic change in how the Department for Veterans Affairs would in future be considering Gulf War veterans illnesses”,

since when many new initiatives have been taken, including one on help for veterans with multi-symptom illness, in terms both of healthcare and disability benefits.

Of course, February 2010 has come and gone and time has falsified the replies given to noble Lords after the RAC’s report was published. That is why there is such determination now all across the ex-service community to prevent any further delay in addressing the implications of the report for British veterans of the conflict.

It was while reflecting on all this that I recalled a moving letter from Samantha Thompson, the widow of a Gulf War veteran who had been decorated by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, at a ceremony held at 10 Downing Street, for his conspicuous bravery. Samantha told me in her letter that she and her seven year-old daughter,

“would have been far better treated had her husband, Nigel, been in the United States and not the British Armed Forces”.

Her anguish was shared by many other widows and by Gulf veterans who were trying to cope with still undiagnosed illnesses, some of them terminally ill, who should surely have been spared the strain and hurtful and demeaning indignities of still further delay in reaching closure on their claims for more adequate help. There was no delay in the response of Nigel Thompson and of all other Gulf veterans to the call of duty in 1990-91. Nor must there be any further delay now, 20 years on from the start of the conflict, in discharging in full our debt of honour to them.

It is among the highest duties of parliamentary life to vouchsafe just treatment for those who, alone in this country, contract with the state to sacrifice their lives in its service. That is why this debate is taking place in your Lordships' House this evening.