DoD, Michael Kilpatrick, spin IOM’s report into focus primarily on psychiatric issues

Written by Anthony Hardie

(91outcomes.com) – In a new article by the U.S. Department of Defense, the latest findings by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) related to Gulf War veterans’ illnesses are twisted or outright ignored, focusing on psychiatric conditions including at least one not even named in the IOM press release while nearly ignoring the very real physical health issues that IOM noted affect more than one-third of Gulf War veterans.

“The excess of unexplained medical symptoms reported by deployed Gulf War veterans cannot be reliably ascribed to any known psychiatric disorder,” said the Institute of Medicine in its comprehensive scientific review last month, which also said that 250,000 veterans of the 1991 Gulf War suffer from chronic multisymptom illness.  This debilitating health condition affecting one third of Gulf War veterans is more commonly called Gulf War Illness or Gulf War Syndrome.

However, the DoD article misses many of the health conditions linked by IOM to Gulf War service, and reorders those it does list to put the psychiatric conditions first. 

For many years, Gulf War veterans have complained about federal government spin that left them without needed health care for the underlying conditions causing their chronic, multiple symptoms. 

This latest DoD release is likely to be met with anger by Gulf War veterans.

--------------------------

The IOM report press release and link to the full report is located at:  http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12835

Comments can be posted to the DoD article, located at:  http://www.health.mil/blog/10-05-20/Institute_of_Medicine_Releases_Gulf_War_Illness_Report.aspx

The comments feature on the DoD webpage is monitored.  Two comments left earlier today have yet to show on the DoD website, one of which was as follows:

Shame on you, DoD, for twisting IOM's release into yet one more story that focuses on psychiatric issues (PTSD affects roughly 10-11%) when the real story about more than 250,000 Gulf War veterans is elsewhere.

IOM's own release listed the causal condition first, as they always do. Of course war causes PTSD in some veterans; that's hardly news.

IOM's release then went on with the following: "and is also associated with multisymptom illness; gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome; substance abuse, particularly alcoholism; and psychiatric problems such as anxiety disorder."

Finally, IOM stated the conditions for which there is some evidence of links to the Gulf War: "There is some evidence that service during the conflict is linked to fibromyalgia and chronic widespread pain, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, sexual difficulties, and death due to causes such as car accidents in the early years after deployment."

In this press release, those of you responsible at DoD were utterly irresponsible, including reversing the order of the conditions listed by IOM by their order of strength, and omitting quite of few of them entirely.

Scientists briefing the VA believe they have found causes, and believe that effective treatments can be developed that might improve the health and lives of ill Gulf War veterans. THAT brings real hope to Gulf War veterans; this DoD press release is just more spin by the same people like Michael Kilpatrick, who have been denying Gulf War veterans even THAT piece of mind for far too long.

Kilpatrick seems to have missed the IOM's own release, which said, in part:

"The report calls for a substantial commitment to improve identification and treatment of multisymptom illness in Gulf War veterans. The path forward should include continued monitoring of Gulf War veterans and development of better medical care for those with persistent, unexplained symptoms. Researchers should undertake studies comparing genetic variations and other differences in veterans experiencing multisymptom illness and asymptomatic veterans. It is likely that multisymptom illness results from the interactions between environmental exposures and genes, and genetics may predispose some individuals to illness, the committee noted. There are sufficient numbers of veterans to conduct meaningful comparisons given that nearly 700,000 U.S. personnel were deployed to the region and more than 250,000 of them suffer from persistant, unexplained symptoms. A consortium involving the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense, and National Institutes of Health could coordinate this effort and contribute the necessary resources."

"The committee concluded that multisymptom illness is linked to Gulf War service, based on the availability of a number of good-quality surveys documenting increased reporting and occurrence of multiple, unexplained symptoms among veterans from several countries that sent troops, including the United Kingdom and Australia. "

"Veterans who continue to suffer from these symptoms deserve the very best that modern science and medicine can offer to speed the development of effective treatments, cures, and -- we hope -- prevention. Our report suggests a path forward to accomplish this goal, and we believe that through a concerted national effort and rigorous scientific input, answers can be found.""

How much longer do veterans have to wait before people like Kilpatrick -- who has long been focused on "stress" as a cause of hundreds of thousands of Gulf War veterans' illness -- are finally removed by the new Administration?

And, it’s pretty disingenuous to lay out all those big numbers of studies and their cost without breaking them down. For example: How many of those studies have been focused on stress and psychiatric issues as what's wrong with Gulf War veterans?100? 200? 300? More? Yet, despite the constant, heavy focus on stress and psychiatric causes by DoD of the past and, apparently, the present, the results are clear in the IOM report’s words, which you at DoD chose to omit: “The excess of unexplained medical symptoms reported by deployed Gulf War veterans cannot be reliably ascribed to any known psychiatric disorder.”

And, how many of that large number of expensive studies have been focused on PB pills and pesticides? Not many, right? How about on reversing the damage? None, right?

How many studies have surveyed veterans of the Gulf War to ask them specifically which chemical warfare agents they believe they were exposed to, and the basis of that belief? None, right?

How about ALS studies that have led to effective new treatments? Sadly, more than 70 years after Lou Gehrig died of the disease, there ‘s only one, and it only prolongs life with ALS by a handful of months.

Of those studies, Mr. Kilpatrick, exactly how many have focused on inhaled or ingested Depleted Uranium dust? Any?

VA's new leadership is taking Gulf War Illness issues in the right direction, and are a shining light and a beacon of hope. Despite the fact that it's now nearly 20 years since the Gulf War, better late than never. And now, it's high time for DoD to get it right, too.

Come on, DoD -- there's real work to do. Our disabled Gulf War veterans deserve no less, and future generations of troops will depend on us finding effective treatments -- and prevention -- TODAY.

MAY 19TH CONGRESSIONAL HEARING -- Little Change Yet for Ill Gulf War Veterans, Federal Officials

Written by Anthony Hardie, 91outcomes

(91outcomes.blogspot.com) -- Army veteran Paul Sullivan of San Antonio, Texas gave perhaps the clearest answer to the question posed by Tuesday’s Congressional hearing, Gulf War Illness Research: Is Enough Being Done?

“As an ill Gulf War veteran who has worked on this issue for 17 years both inside and outside government, the answer is no,” testified Sullivan, Executive Director of Veterans for Common Sense, former Executive Director and co-founder of the National Gulf War Resource Center, and a former VA employee in VA's Data Management Office.

“In the past, we have seen service-related illnesses ignored, misunderstood, or swept under the rug,” said Subcommittee Chairman Harry Mitchell (D-Ariz.) in his opening statement.

Rick Weidman, a Vietnam veteran and Government Relations Director for Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), added: “In regard to Gulf War Illness, VA has known the basic outline as to what was wrong with up to 200, 000 of those who served in the Gulf for a decade. Yet they continue to drag their feet in addressing the justifiable compensation requests of these veterans, and to give them the runaround on medical care.”

Weidman, a longstanding veterans’ advocate, continued in his testimony, “One has to ask, what is wrong with this institution (VA) that it would treat the men and women who are literally its very reason for existing in such a high-handed and disrespectful manner, even in the face of consistent scientific advice and good judgment?”

Dr. Roberta White, Ph.D., who has been researching Gulf War veterans’ illnesses since 1993, stated for the record that her team found not only low rates of PTSD among ill veterans, but also “systematic relationships,” between, “self-reported exposures to pesticides and to nerve gas agents and health complaints in specific body systems.” This early research was later validated by other research efforts.

White’s team also found decreased white matter in the brains of ill Gulf War veterans, cognitive and neuropsychological deficits not explained by psychiatric diagnoses, and that ill Gulf War veterans’ health complaints remained stable and without improvement over time – no surprise to ill Gulf War veterans. White is the current scientific director of the Congressionally chartered Federal Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses.

Army veteran Jim Bunker of Topeka, Kan., courageously told the Congressional investigators in his halting voice of his current Gulf War illness symptoms, which are typical for literally tens of thousands Gulf War veterans:

• Numbness, weakness, and/or tingling in arms and legs
  
  
• Headaches
  
  
• Cognitive dysfunction
  
  
• Gastric reflux disease
  
  
• Fibromyalgia
  
  
• Mouth sores and skin peeling from roof of mouth
  
  
• Skin rashes
  
  
• Sinusitis
  
  

Later in the hearing, when federal agency officials implied there was nothing wrong with Gulf War veterans, one Congressman pointedly asked, “What about Bunker?” Bunker had become a visible symbol of what has been and continues to be wrong with between 175,000 and 210,000 veterans from among the 696,842 who served in the 1991 Gulf War.

Meanwhile, a CIA official testified regarding the 1991 Gulf War theater of operations chemical agent releases known to the agency. He failed to mention incidents known to the Pentagon or described by veterans to Congress in Congressional hearings over the past two decades, relying purely on what CIA “knew”. He showed little knowledge of ground conditions, during which chemical alarms – when used – continuously went off.

 

He failed to mention chemical agent releases and exposures known to veterans and some within the Pentagon at the time that occurred in al Jubayl and Ra’s al-Mishab, chemical minefields in southeastern Kuwait, blister agent releases that caused the rapid Iraqi evacuation of a unit’s bunker complex in north-eastern Kuwait, and countless others like the incident Bunker described that personally affected him.

VA, predictably, recycled old testimony from a previous Congressional hearing, suggesting that VA has done everything possible to help Gulf War veterans, who do not suffer from a “unique illness.” Predictably, Dr. Lawrence Deyton stated that VA would wait until 2010 for an Institute of Medicine (IOM) review of the November 2008 report of the Research Advisory Committee (RAC) on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses.

The RAC’s findings were covered in detail by Dr. Lea Steele, Ph.D., of the University of Kansas, who passionately and compassionately presented the report’s findings during the Hearing.

Steele echoed the report’s findings in her prepared testimony:

Oddly, in his testimony the Department of Defense official claimed credit for funding recent research years focused on treatments for ill Gulf War veterans – an irony given DoD’s enduring opposition to the funding as DoD officials have reportedly made clear to House Defense Appropriations staffers.

Due to powerful support from Gulf War veterans' advocates, Congress has provided annual funding to DoD anyway, and it falls under the well-run Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) based at Ft. Detrick, Maryland. The Congressional funding has been provided with clear instructions to DoD on its possible uses, with requirements to focus on treatments and prohibitions against more unneeded DoD research on stress and psychological causes for ill Gulf War veterans’ all too real array of symptom clusters.

In short, veterans and science are in full agreement that the Gulf War’s veritable toxic soup made between 175,000 and 210,000 Gulf War veterans ill with chronic, multi-symptom illness, that their illnesses have not improved over time, and that effective treatments still do not exist – in large part due to long-term failures by the federal agencies charged with caring for ensuring the well-being of these veterans.

And the federal response? CIA officials are still blindly and wrongly claiming there were few or no chemical releases that reached Gulf War troops, DoD officials are overly proud of the “lessons learned” from the Gulf War while Gulf War veterans continue to suffer, and the same low-level VA officials providing the same recycled testimony are still implying or outright stating that everything that could be done for Gulf War veterans was and is being done.

Tell that to Jim Bunker as he, like tens of thousands of other ill Gulf War veterans, struggles with walking, sleeping, and communicating.

All might be well safe with the Beltway in the Land of Washington. But all is certainly not well for the 175,000 to 210,000 Gulf War veterans who still continue to suffer the lingering, untreated outcomes of their Gulf War service.

Change is needed – desperately.

[Watch the Hearing via Multimedia Link now]

“A renewed federal research commitment is needed to identify effective treatments for Gulf War illness, improve understanding of this condition, and address other priority Gulf War health issues. Adequate funding and appropriate program management is required to achieve the critical objectives of improving the health of Gulf War veterans and preventing similar problems in future deployments. As noted by the Committee this is a national obligation, made especially urgent by the many years that Gulf War veterans have waited for answers and assistance.”