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Gulf War Illness
3.30 pm
The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Nicholas Soames): With your permission, Madam Speaker, I should like to make a statement on Gulf war illness.
As the House will remember with great pride, six years ago some 50,000 British troops deployed to the Gulf as part of the allied coalition to liberate Kuwait. The prime concern and duty of the Government and the chiefs of staff--now as then--was the safety and welfare of our service personnel; and the commanders on the ground took every possible step to minimise the risk faced by our troops. The House will recall that British troops were facing an aggressor who had formidably well-equipped armed forces, and whom we correctly assessed as possessing and being capable of using weapons of mass destruction.
The Gulf campaign was, by any standards, a brilliant feat of arms. The number of British service men killed or wounded in action was, mercifully, much smaller than had at one stage been feared. Illness amongst our troops in the desert was much lower than that experienced during earlier conflicts--a reflection of the steps taken to maintain very high standards in the face of unfamiliar, difficult and sometimes unhealthy conditions.
Since the conflict, a small number of those who served have become ill. Some of those are ill with clearly recognisable symptoms, for which they are receiving appropriate treatment; others are suffering from sickness which medical science has so far found it difficult readily to explain. There have been suggestions that some of those unwell are afflicted by a specific syndrome caused by service in the Gulf.
I want to make it plain yet again that, as much as we were anxious for the welfare of our troops during the conflict, so we remain no less concerned about the health of our Gulf veterans, both serving and retired.
In our search for answers, we have throughout been guided by the best medical and scientific advice available in the land. In 1993, we established a medical assessment programme to try to diagnose the reasons why some Gulf war veterans were ill. In order to establish the professional independence and integrity of this work, the methodology of the programme was audited, at my request, by the Royal College of Physicians, and was endorsed by that body in July 1995.
So far, some 921 veterans have been examined, and have been referred for appropriate further treatment where necessary. Although the results have not produced any evidence of a new pattern of illness, the Government retain an entirely open mind on whether there is generally more illness amongst our veterans than should be expected, and whether there are Gulf service-related factors at work which remain to be discovered. It is now clear that the medical assessment programme alone cannot answer those questions. On the advice, therefore, of the Royal College of Physicians, we have asked the Medical Research Council to establish a major, independent, peer-reviewed research programme.
The MRC has considered in great detail a large number of research proposals. It advises that the only scientifically sound way to proceed is by conducting epidemiological
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The MRC's recommendation is to proceed with two studies, which I am pleased to be able to announce today. They will be led by Professor Nicola Cherry at Manchester university and by Dr. Patricia Doyle of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. The costs, which will amount to about £1.3 million, will be met by the Ministry of Defence. I should like to express my thanks to Professor Alan McGregor of King's college medical school for his work as chairman of the Medical Research Council committee examining these matters.
The Medical Research Council advises us that, if the studies are to be rigorously and scientifically conducted, they will take about three years to complete. The Medical Research Council tells us that the research programme should find the answers we seek. The projects will be carefully co-ordinated with a major United States-funded epidemiological study, which is being conducted in parallel at King's college, London by Dr. Simon Wessely.
The Government have throughout worked very closely indeed with the US authorities on Gulf war-related health research. From the start, there has been the most extensive--indeed, almost daily--contact between the medical teams involved on both sides of the Atlantic. We are most truly grateful for that assistance.
I visited the United States recently to discuss those matters in detail. I want the House to know that we are as one with the Americans, and that they have agreed to allow us unfettered access to the results of the extensive research programme that they have in hand. I attach the greatest importance to that extremely valuable co-operation.
So as to consolidate those links further, I have appointed a British medical liaison officer to work in the United States Department of Defense research programme. A British officer already sits on the US research working group, affording us a valuable insight into its on-going work.
Meanwhile, at the request of the American authorities, the Medical Research Council has agreed to review the research that has been carried out in America. That will enable us to establish the relevance of any of their studies to the health of our veterans, and whether there are any obvious gaps.
The Government are also taking further steps to remind veterans of the existence of the medical assessment programme. At the same time, we are writing to all the general practitioners of all those who have been seen in the medical assessment programme so as to improve our knowledge of the medical progress of retired service men.
There has been much speculation that explanations for illness among Gulf veterans can be found in the various hazards that faced our troops during the campaign. The Government wish to be entirely open about what happened during the Gulf conflict, and I wish to emphasise that we have nothing to hide, and, indeed, absolutely no reason to do so.
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In this connection, as I promised, I am now able to update the House on the use of pesticides in the protection of our forces during the campaign. Understandably, that issue has given rise to genuine concern in recent weeks.
The House will recall that I made it public on 4 October that there had been wider use of organophosphate chemicals in the Gulf than had previously been thought, or than we had previously been advised. I have already apologised to the House for that, and expressed my profound regret and anger that that ran counter to earlier information given in utmost good faith by Ministers in answer to parliamentary questions. I unreservedly do so again. I subsequently told the House that a comprehensive investigation had been commissioned to discover the facts, and I promised to report the outcome as soon as it was known.
My noble Friend the Lord Privy Seal told another place on 4 December that we expected the results before Christmas. I received the report of that investigation, which covers two separate areas, on 6 December.
On the first, which is what actually happened in the Gulf, the investigation team discovered that OP pesticides were indeed used by our troops in the Gulf to deal with the serious threat posed by fly-borne disease on a much wider scale than previously reported. Secondly, the investigation team discovered that, with the exception of the possible small-scale use of pesticides obtained incorrectly, there is no evidence that they were improperly used.
There is also the question of the dusting powder used to delouse Iraqi prisoners of war, where the inquiry has found that the number of Iraqi prisoners involved ran to hundreds rather than the 50 previously reported to the House. Again, I very much regret the fact that Ministers, and therefore the House, should have been inadvertently misinformed.
I am making arrangements for this section of the report to be published in full, and a copy is being placed in the Library of the House of Commons.
The House will understand that, given the extraordinary pressure of work generated by the vast and complex preparations for a sustained period of high-intensity conflict, and at a distance of six years, we simply cannot be sure of all the details. There may indeed be individual veterans who have further information to add to the story: if so, we would welcome it. We are as anxious as anyone to establish what happened. They should get in touch with me at the Ministry of Defence. I want the House to be wholly confident that we are absolutely determined to establish what happened.
The second part of the investigation deals with the question of how parliamentary questions were answered. The key findings are that the first parliamentary question in July 1994 was answered incorrectly because Ministers were given flawed advice arising from a failure within one area of the Department; and that the original flawed advice was repeatedly resubmitted in answer to further parliamentary questions.
On the question of how Ministers became aware of the mistake that had been made, detailed investigation has found that the possible local purchase of OP pesticides was mentioned in background material to a written parliamentary question answered in October 1995. In June 1996, officials on one occasion suggested possible difficulties over the standard briefing line on pesticide
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I must emphasise again that Ministers at no stage knowingly misled the House on this matter, nor would they ever have done so, and I again unreservedly apologise to the House that this should have come to pass.
The evident failures in providing proper and timely advice to Ministers are a matter of serious concern. It is essential that the reasons are examined in detail. Accordingly, a separate investigation, overseen by the permanent under-secretary, is being set in hand.
Because of its potential implications for individuals, arising from the possibility of disciplinary or administrative action affecting careers, it would be against natural justice to publish the detailed information gathered so far on these matters. I can, however, assure the House that the further investigation will be completed as soon as possible and the findings made available to the House at the first opportunity.This is a serious matter, and I felt it important to report the facts as soon as they became available.
I now turn to the issue of the vaccination programme against possible biological weapons attacks in the Gulf. There has been concern that those vaccinations might have contributed to some of the sickness reported, although there is at present no evidence to support that.
I am sure that the House will understand the need for the greatest care to be taken over the release of the details of our response to a biological or chemical weapons threat. That could clearly be of value to potential future aggressors.
However, following a detailed review, we now judge that, six years on and in the light of further developments since the Gulf conflict, knowledge of the steps that we took then is now less militarily sensitive. I can therefore today provide a full account of the vaccination programme that was carried out, and to this end I am placing a detailed memorandum today in the Library of the House of Commons.
The memorandum makes it clear that the MOD acted swiftly to offer the best protection available to our forces--on a voluntary basis--in the face of a clearly assessed potentially lethal threat--an assessment since wholly vindicated by the findings of the United Nations special commission. In the event, Saddam Hussein did not--thank God--use his biological weapons, but no responsible Government could have ignored the very real possibility that he might have done so, and accordingly appropriate precautions were taken.
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