ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS: Don't Stop--VA needs to press research on Gulf War illness

Written by the Editors of the Anchorage Daily News 

(Anchorage, Alaska - October 10, 2009) - Veterans of the 1990-91 war in Iraq continue to struggle with the government for proper attention to the mysterious illnesses known as "Gulf War syndrome." Years of research into those illnesses has linked many of them to the use of pesticides and a nerve-gas antidote used by U.S. forces during that war. That research, while not absolutely conclusive, gives the lie to what the government had been telling vets who suffer from brain damage, gastrointestinal diseases, fatigue, memory loss, chronic diarrhea, joint pain and persistent headaches.

Post-traumatic stress, the feds said. A psychiatric condition.

No way, says the lead researcher into Gulf War illness at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

"Now we know it's a real disease caused by chemical exposure," epidemiologist Robert Haley told The Dallas Morning News.

However, the Veterans Administration has canceled the Texas medical center's $75 million contract to study the disease and figure out effective treatment. The department said that Haley's research has violated many research protocols; critics have questioned his methodology.

We can't judge Dr. Haley's contract performance. But his work, and other confirming research, makes clear that this work needs to continue. If not with Dr. Haley's group, then with someone else.

Haley's conclusion, that Gulf War illness is "a real disease" and not a manifestation of stress, received powerful confirmation in 2008. That's when a congressionally sanctioned group of scientists, medical experts and military vets found Gulf War illness was fundamentally different from stress-related syndromes.

The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses pulled together work of scientific and government investigations and found the evidence "leaves no question that Gulf War illness is a real condition."

The Veterans Administration continues to resist that conclusion.

At stake is what could be billions of dollars in veterans' disability benefits.

Much more important, what's at stake is the health of up to one in four Gulf War vets who may be suffering from chemical exposures inflicted by their own forces with the best of intentions.

The VA has a troubling track record in these matters. It took decades for the government to acknowledge the terrible effects of Agent Orange and other toxic defoliants used in Vietnam.

And the official response to the Gulf War illness was first to blame it on stress. Then there was foot-dragging.

No more delays -- and let's not lose whatever knowledge Dr. Haley and his colleagues have gained.

The nation owes Gulf War vets its best effort to zero in on causes and cures. Anything less is betrayal.

BOTTOM LINE: Evidence is strong that Gulf War illness is real. Let's stand by our vets and find out how to treat it.

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Editor's Note:  the following editorial, also by the Anchorage Daily News, rings as true now as it did nearly a year ago when it was first published.


Gulf War illness: Government finally admits vets suffer from a real condition

Written by the Editors of the Anchorage Daily News

(Anchorage, Alaska - November 18, 2008) - The official U.S. government response to claims of Gulf War illness has run from skepticism to outright denial.

This week's report by the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illness should put an end to doubt. Contrary to government claims, debilitating symptoms are not likely from battlefield stress and other psychological factors. The council, made up of scientists and veterans and working on marching orders from Congress, lays the blame on exposure to pesticides and the PB (pyridostigmine bromide) pills taken to thwart the effects of nerve gas.

With one in four of the 697,000 Gulf War vets reporting some level of the same symptoms, the lights should have gone on a long time ago in the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

One in four -- and yet these 172,000 veterans have had to deal with a government that simply didn't believe them.

Enough. The council concludes that Gulf War illness is real. That's bitter confirmation to the veterans who have suffered from what the report calls a "complex of multiple concurrent symptoms" that "typically includes persistent memory and concentration problems, chronic headaches, widespread pain, gastrointestinal problems, and other chronic abnormalities."

So now veterans have rigorous support for what they have contended all along -- it's not just in our heads, we're not making it up. We're sick.

The report should help clear the way for an all-out effort to find treatment and a cure. If the government drags its feet now, it'll be doing a grim impression of the tobacco industry in the face of the Surgeon General's reports.

The council, noting that research funds for Gulf War illness have declined in recent years, recommends a boost of $60 million in research toward effective treatment and cure. That's a good start.

Clearly, Gulf War illness was inflicted on our troops unintentionally. The military was trying to protect them from weapons that then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was known to possess and willing to use.

Just as clearly, the United States owes Gulf War veterans whatever treatment of that illness is available now, along with serious research into finding a cure, or better treatment of the various symptoms.

Thousands of our Gulf War vets are sick. Let's help them.

BOTTOM LINE: Gulf War illness is real, and few vets who suffer the disease are getting better. It's past time for serious work on a cure. 
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Is Change Coming?  

CAPE COD TIMES: Loss of funding threatens research on Gulf War illness

Written by Scott K. Parks, The Dallas Morning News -- Published in the Cape Cod Times 

(Dallas, Texas - October 8, 2009) - The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' cancellation of a $75 million contract with University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center could mean the end to the Dallas university's research into treatments and cures for Gulf War illnesses.

UT Southwestern epidemiologist Dr. Robert Haley told The Dallas Morning News that he and a team of 200 colleagues from eight universities are five years ahead of anyone else engaged in the painstaking research into why 200,000 healthy soldiers went to the Persian Gulf in 1990-91 and returned to civilian lives of chronic illness.

"Without the VA funding, discovery of a treatment is very low," Haley said.

The VA declined to comment on Haley's research. Instead, a spokesperson referred The News to an Aug. 26 news release announcing cancellation of the contract for "persistent noncompliance and numerous performance deficiencies."

Haley has been studying a small group of sick Gulf War veterans for 15 years. His findings show a range of persistent symptoms — chronic fatigue, chronic diarrhea, memory loss, joint pain, loss of muscle strength and persistent headaches — caused by battlefield exposure to pesticides and other chemicals.

The next step, supported by $15 million a year from the VA, was to be a large study of 2,000 Gulf War veterans. The results of that study would show whether chemical exposures harmed a significant number of veterans, Haley said.

"We are looking at unplowed ground," he said. "Nobody has ever looked at pesticide exposure and brain damage and chronic symptoms. People didn't believe this stuff was real, even in the civilian world, and it's never been looked at."

An estimated 700,000 veterans served in the Persian Gulf in 1990-91. Veterans groups had hoped Haley's work might break the gridlock preventing thousands of them from receiving disability benefits and medical care based on exposure to pesticides, nerve gas, oilfield fires or military-issued antidotes to nerve gas.

Haley is convinced that many veterans suffered brain damage from exposure to organophosphates (sprayed pesticides or insect repellants worn like flea collars) and pyridostigmine bromide (nerve gas antidote). He rejects the theory that Gulf War illnesses stem from post-traumatic stress — a psychiatric condition.

"Originally, this (Gulf War illness) was signed, sealed and delivered as stress," Haley said. "Now, we know it's a real disease caused by chemical exposure. It's now the conventional wisdom."

But the VA, which has the power to grant or withhold disability payments, has not embraced that conclusion. Consequently, billions of dollars in monthly veterans' benefits could hang in the balance.

The U.S. House committee on veteran affairs held two hearings on the status of Gulf War illness research in 2009. Testimony showed that federal agencies spent $350 million on 345 projects related to health care needs of Gulf War veterans between 1992 and 2007.

But critics say those projects didn't focus on identifying causes and treatment of Gulf War illnesses.

Dr. Lea Steele, a leading expert on Gulf War illnesses at Kansas State University, testified that much of the research focused on stress and psychiatric conditions and had "little or no relevance to the health of Gulf War veterans."

By contrast, Haley's supporters say his slow, painstaking research on veteran brain diseases is precisely targeted at causes and treatments.

Legally, the VA must seek the opinion of a prestigious group of medical researchers on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Gulf War and Health. The committee has reported that it cannot conclusively link toxic exposures to Gulf War illnesses.

On the other side of the ledger, another panel of prestigious scientists, the VA's Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, reported in October 2008 that "a unique neurological illness has caused significant morbidity (25 percent) among Gulf War veterans, and this is 'causally' (the highest possible level of association) linked to nerve agent antidote and pesticides used in the 1991 Gulf War."

The VA announcement ending the contract came after repeated disputes between UT Southwestern and government contract managers. A scathing report from the VA inspector general in July accused Haley of violating all sorts of VA contract protocols.

UT Southwestern administrators admitted some mistakes in contract administration and said they tried to correct them, but the VA canceled the contract anyway.

Privately, UT supporters said some longtime VA administrators resent the federal budget earmark that dedicated research funds to UT Southwestern — legislation that prevented the VA from controlling where $75 million was going to be spent on research.

In the Sept. 11 edition of Science magazine, writer Eliot Marshall quoted British psychiatrist Simon Wessely, a noted health researcher, as saying that Haley's work was worthwhile but that it's time to recognize that "we're not going to find the smoking gun that explains the cause of Gulf War illness."

Other critics allege that Haley and his team have spent too much time studying a group of 43 Navy Seabees, subjecting them to sophisticated brain imaging tests and genetic research. Haley chose the Seabees because they traveled all over the Persian Gulf, building bridges and runways in advance of troop movements.

If any group experienced all the wartime conditions in the Persian Gulf, it was the Seabees, he theorized.

Haley and his team believe their published research proves conclusively that the Seabee illnesses stem from toxic chemical exposures during the war. But his critics contend that research on such a small group proves nothing about the overall health of 700,000 men and women who served during the war.

Haley said the VA pulled the plug on his funding just as he was designing a study of 2,000 randomly selected Gulf War veterans — 1,000 sick and 1,000 healthy.

"The VA funding is the final step, the rifle shot, to prove this," Haley said. "Is what we found with the Seabees true of the whole of Gulf War veterans? And that is the final definitive question."

DALLAS MORNING NEWS: VA Decision Is a Step in the Wrong Direction

Dallas Morning News Editorial

(Dallas, Texas - October 7, 2009) -  If the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs truly wants to find out why so many Gulf War veterans returned home with unexplained illnesses after the 1990-91 conflict, then its senior executives need to re-fund local researchers who might have the answer. 

UT-Southwestern Medical Center researcher Robert Haley has been studying sick Gulf War veterans for 15 years, the last three under a $75 million, five-year research contract with the VA until the department recently terminated the contract for procedural violations.

The VA's decision is unbelievably shortsighted, as illustrated in a front page story on Sunday by Dallas Morning News reporter Scott Parks, who documented some of the significant progress that Haley's research team of more than 200 colleagues from eight universities has made in linking Gulf War illnesses to brain damage from exposure to chemicals on the battlefield. These preliminary findings could debunk theories that veterans' memory losses, chronic pain and other symptoms are stress-related.

If the early research holds true, then Haley will have solved a nearly 20-year mystery, given veterans' hope for better treatment and perhaps even aided doctors to diagnose and treat civilians with similar symptoms of unexplained origin. If, however, the VA sticks by its decision, thenyears of diligent scientific work will go down the drain, and sadly Gulf War veterans will be no closer to an answer.

UT-Southwestern and the VA have made mistakes, such as structuring the agreement as a rigid contract instead of as a flexible traditional research grant. Shelving unique and advanced research that could change lives isn't the solution. The VA's executives should see the importance of this study and allow researchers to move to the next critical research stage – a full-scale study of 2,000 Gulf War veterans.

UTSW Hires Heavy-Hitting Lobbying Firm for Gulf War Illness Research Funding

Written by Anthony Hardie, 91outcomes

(91outcomes.blogspot.com - October 2, 2009) - University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas has hired the lobbying firm Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates to lobby on its behalf for Gulf War Syndrome research funding.

UTSW's unique, $75 million earmarked contract for Gulf War illness research, led by Dr. Robert Haley, was cancelled in August by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which cited intractable contract disputes.  

Haley, recipient of the 2005 Congressional Medal of Honor Society's prestigious National Patriot Award, has been a leading researcher on Gulf War veterans' illnesses.  Haley and his research team, originally funded by Texas billionaire and longstanding Gulf War veteran advocate Ross Perot, identified measurable brain and other neurological damage in ill Gulf War veterans.  

Going on the theory that neurotoxins caused Gulf War Illness, Haley's team separated out three distinct symptom cluster-based syndromes, and was working on developing diagnostic technologies and treatments when VA abruptly canceled his earmark-funded contract. 

Among Wexler's associates listed as lobbying for UTSW on Gulf War Syndrome are Timothy Hannegan, Wexler's president, and Monty Tripp, former legal counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight.

Hannegan is the grandson of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Robert E. Hannegan and, according to his public profile, "a prolific Democratic fundraiser".  He is a former senior official with the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), and has lobbying experience in aviation and homeland security sectors.  Tripp previously served as counsel to the House Subcommittee on National Security, overseeing defense activities, and has substantial experience in the House budgeting process.

Dale Snape and Daniella Landau are also listed as lobbying on UTSW's behalf. Snape, Wexler's CEO and General Manager, has "over 30 years of Washington experience at the White House Office of Management and Budget and Wexler & Walker Policy Associates," specializing in defense and other issues.  Landau is the former managing director of government affairs for American Airlines' Washington, D.C. office.

Wexler & Walker's lobbying registration on behalf of UTSW was effective September 1, 2009.

DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Loss of funding threatens UT Southwestern's Gulf War illness research

Written by Scott K. Parks, The Dallas Morning News

(Dallas, Tex. - October 4, 2009) - The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' cancellation of a $75 million contract with UT Southwestern Medical Center could mean the end to the Dallas university's research into treatments and cures for Gulf War illnesses. 

COURTNEY PERRY/DMN

UT Southwestern epidemiologist Robert Haley rejects the theory that Gulf War illnesses stem from post-traumatic stress - a psychiatric condition. 'Now, we know it's a real disease caused by chemical exposure,' he said. Veterans groups, UT Southwestern and their political supporters in Washington are working to restore VA funding for Haley's research - without it, he says, the chances of finding a treatment are low.

UT Southwestern epidemiologist Dr. Robert Haley told The Dallas Morning News that he and a team of 200 colleagues from eight universities are five years ahead of anyone else engaged in the painstaking research into why 200,000 healthy soldiers went to the Persian Gulf in 1990-91 and returned to civilian lives of chronic illness.

"Without the VA funding, discovery of a treatment is very low," Haley said.

ERICH SCHLEGEL/Special Contributor

Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, got sick after serving in the Persian Gulf. He calls Dr. Haley's work essential.

The VA declined to comment on Haley's research. Instead, a spokesperson referred The News to an Aug. 26 news release announcing cancellation of the contract for "persistent noncompliance and numerous performance deficiencies."

Haley has been studying a small group of sick Gulf War veterans for 15 years. His findings show a range of persistent symptoms – chronic fatigue, chronic diarrhea, memory loss, joint pain, loss of muscle strength and persistent headaches – caused by battlefield exposure to pesticides and other chemicals.

The next step, supported by $15 million a year from the VA, was to be a large study of 2,000 Gulf War veterans. The results of that study would show whether chemical exposures harmed a significant number of veterans, Haley said.

A closer look at the body of research conducted by Haley and his colleagues shows possible ramifications beyond the health of Gulf War veterans. VA funding to support development of diagnostic tests and medical treatments for sick veterans might also have helped civilian homemakers, factory workers or farm workers who get mysterious illnesses after exposure to pesticides, Haley said.

"We are looking at unplowed ground," he said. "Nobody has ever looked at pesticide exposure and brain damage and chronic symptoms. People didn't believe this stuff was real, even in the civilian world, and it's never been looked at."

Benefits blocked

An estimated 700,000 veterans served in the Persian Gulf in 1990-91. Veterans groups had hoped Haley's work might break the gridlock preventing thousands of them from receiving disability benefits and medical care based on exposure to pesticides, nerve gas, oilfield fires or military-issued antidotes to nerve gas.
Paul Sullivan, 46, married and a father of two, served as an Army cavalry scout in the Persian Gulf. He came home with chronic lung ailments and has been working as a veterans' advocate for more than 15 years. He is considered a particularly credible critic of VA policies because he worked for the federal agency from 2000 to 2006.

"Dr. Haley's work is absolutely essential," said Sullivan, who serves as executive director of Veterans for Common Sense in Austin. "Now, with the VA's premature cancellation of the contract, time is being lost and that entire institutional knowledge at UT Southwestern is being lost."

Haley is convinced that many veterans suffered brain damage from exposure to organophosphates (sprayed pesticides or insect repellants worn like flea collars) and pyridostigmine bromide (nerve gas antidote). He rejects the theory that Gulf War illnesses stem from post-traumatic stress – a psychiatric condition.

"Originally, this [Gulf War illness] was signed, sealed and delivered as stress," Haley said. "Now, we know it's a real disease caused by chemical exposure. It's now the conventional wisdom."
But the VA, which has the power to grant or withhold disability payments, has not embraced that conclusion. Consequently, billions of dollars in monthly veterans' benefits could hang in the balance.

Relevance to vets

The U.S. House committee on veteran affairs held two hearings on the status of Gulf War illness research in 2009. Testimony showed that federal agencies spent $350 million on 345 projects related to health care needs of Gulf War veterans between 1992 and 2007.

But critics say those projects didn't focus on identifying causes and treatment of Gulf War illnesses.
Dr. Lea Steele, a leading expert on Gulf War illnesses at Kansas State University, testified that much of the research focused on stress and psychiatric conditions and had "little or no relevance to the health of Gulf War veterans."

By contrast, Haley's supporters say his slow, painstaking research on veteran brain diseases is precisely targeted at causes and treatments.

This year's House hearings clearly showed that the VA's scientific advisers are still divided about why so many Gulf War veterans suffer from one or more chronic symptoms.

Legally, the VA must seek the opinion of a prestigious group of medical researchers on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Gulf War and Health. The committee has reported that it cannot conclusively link toxic exposures to Gulf War illnesses.

On the other side of the ledger, another panel of prestigious scientists, the VA's Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, reported in October 2008 that "a unique neurological illness has caused significant morbidity (25 percent) among Gulf War veterans, and this is 'causally' [the highest possible level of association] linked to nerve agent antidote and pesticides used in the 1991 Gulf War."

It's a bureaucratic stalemate.

Restoring funding

Veterans groups, UT Southwestern and their political supporters in Washington are working to restore VA funding. If successful, they hope the money will flow as a grant rather than a government contract, which comes with many more rules and regulations.

"You can imagine," Haley said, "if you have to go to the government every time you want to take a step, your job becomes a six- or seven-decade job, and everybody quits. Everybody's dead."

The VA announcement ending the contract came after repeated disputes between UT Southwestern and government contract managers. A scathing report from the VA inspector general in July accused Haley of violating all sorts of VA contract protocols.

UT Southwestern administrators admitted some mistakes in contract administration and said they tried to correct them, but the VA canceled the contract anyway.

Privately, UT supporters said some longtime VA administrators resent the federal budget earmark that dedicated research funds to UT Southwestern – legislation that prevented the VA from controlling where $75 million was going to be spent on research.

In the Sept. 11 edition of Science magazine, writer Eliot Marshall described the VA contract with Haley as "lavishly funded." The article quoted British psychiatrist Simon Wessely, a noted health researcher, as saying that Haley's work was worthwhile but that it's time to recognize that "we're not going to find the smoking gun that explains the cause of Gulf War illness."

Other critics allege that Haley and his team have spent too much time studying a group of 43 Navy Seabees, subjecting them to sophisticated brain imaging tests and genetic research. Haley chose the Seabees because they traveled all over the Persian Gulf, building things like bridges and runways in advance of troop movements.

If any group experienced all the wartime conditions in the Persian Gulf, it was the Seabees, he theorized.
Haley and his team believe their body of published research proves conclusively that the Seabee illnesses stem from toxic chemical exposures during the war. But his critics contend that research on such a small group proves nothing about the overall health of 700,000 men and women who served during the war.
Haley said the VA pulled the plug on his funding just as he was designing a study of 2,000 randomly selected Gulf War veterans – 1,000 sick and 1,000 healthy.

"The VA funding is the final step, the rifle shot, to prove this," Haley said. "Is what we found with the Seabees true of the whole of Gulf War veterans? And that is the final definitive question."

Genetic implications

If you've never heard of Dr. John F. Teiber, you've probably never heard of the PON1 gene.

In the late 1990s, Haley's research on the Seabees began to intersect with sophisticated genetic research into the sources of disease and illness.

Teiber is one of the world's foremost experts on PON1. He is a protégé of the late Dr. Bert N. La Du of the University of Michigan. Haley recruited Teiber to UT Southwestern after La Du's death.

PON1 produces an enzyme that protects the human body from chemical toxicity. Some people produce more of the enzyme than others.

In 1999, Haley and La Du published a scientific paper that compared PON levels in a group of sick Seabees with PON levels in a control group of healthy Seabees. The control group showed higher levels of the PON enzyme.

This explained why two Seabees worked side by side in the Persian Gulf and only one of them got sick after both suffered toxic chemical exposure, according to Haley.

But the PON1 discovery had wider ramifications.

Haley enlisted the aid of a UT Southwestern colleague to build a "gene therapy device" to boost PON1 levels in laboratory mice. Generally, those mice showed more immunity to the effects of toxic chemical exposure than the control-group mice not injected with the device. The university has submitted a patent application to the U.S. government to exploit the invention.

Theoretically, after obtaining the patent, the university could license the invention to a pharmaceutical firm that turns it into a vaccine against pesticide or other chemical exposures. Future soldiers could go into battle with higher PON levels to protect them against a range of chemical exposures.

Ordinary citizens worried about their exposure to pesticides or household chemicals some day might get a PON-boosting immunization.

"With this patent, should it be given and should a [pharmaceutical company] end up with a product, the genesis goes back to the Gulf War illness research," Haley said.

Meanwhile, Teiber and his colleagues continue to labor in his PON1 laboratory on the UT Southwestern campus, charting PON1 levels in 2,000 sick and healthy Gulf War veterans.

VA funding for this work is gone, but Haley said he has found other money to support Teiber's operation.
"We are making significant progress," Teiber said. "But we were counting on the VA funds to continue the research."

DALLAS MORNING NEWS: VA Stands by Decision to Cancel Gulf War Illness Research Funding

Written by Scott K. Parks, The Dallas Morning News

(Dallas, Tex. - Sunday, October 4, 2009) - Vanessa Morton, a VA manager in charge of the Gulf War illnesses research contract with UT Southwestern Medical Center, declined to be interviewed for today's front-page story.

The Dallas Morning News asked the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to provide a credible and knowledgeable spokesperson for an interview about its position on Gulf War illnesses and why it canceled the contract with UT Southwestern.

Jessica B. Jacobsen, deputy director of the VA's regional office of public affairs, declined this request. Instead, she provided the following statement:

"Research into the illnesses suffered by Gulf War veterans as with all veterans remains a highest priority for VA. As part of our commitment to this vital effort, we must make certain that our resources are used to support the most effective and productive research.

"We stand by our decision not to exercise the third-year option with University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. VA is working with the Medical Center to capture the contractual research results. As appropriate, VA will redirect funds to support additional research into Gulf War Veterans illness especially directed to treatment."