UK Gulf War Veteran's Life Plagued by Gulf War Syndrome, Still No Effective Treatment

Editor's Note: The U.S. Government officially recognized Gulf War Illness in a November 2008 report by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses.

As noted in the article below, the UK has yet to do the same, adding to the struggles of the UK's ill Gulf War veterans.

There are still no effective treatments for Gulf War Illness, which, at best, is treated only by medicating for each symptom as best as possible.


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Written by Alison Sanders, the [South Wales, UK] Argus

Newport, South Wales, UK (South Wales Argus) - A Newport First Gulf War veteran who said his life was turned upside down after being plagued with a form of arthritis for the last 15 years is urging the ministry of defence to recognise ‘Gulf War syndrome’.

Phil Brown, 39, of Sheridan Close, The Gaer, was diagnosed with Reiter’s syndrome (a condition that affects the joints and eyes) in the early 1990s just before leaving the army.

His life is now a constant battle against joint pain, short-term memory loss, conjunctivitis, and bowel problems.

He said: “My memory is useless. I get arthritis which moves around my body. It used to stay for about three weeks in one joint but for the last two or three years it’s in my knee and ankle.”

But Mr Brown said he was completely fit before joining the army and now has to constantly alter his life around his illness.

He puts these problems down to Gulf War syndrome - an illness the MOD refuses to recognise.

The National Gulf War Veterans and Families Association describe Gulf War syndrome sufferers as having symptoms such as chronic fatigue, sweats, fevers, joint pain, headaches, cognitive problems and memory problems.

Mr Brown joined the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers in 1989 aged 18.

The father-of-one and step-father-of-three was a craftsman working on tank transporters and went out to Jubail in Saudi Arabia in December 1990.

He worked on moving tanks up to Kuwait and then shifting armour back along the route fixing any trucks along the way.

Mr Brown was in Iraq for four months and said the most traumatic part was seeing the carnage left along the roads.

About a year after leaving Iraq, Mr Brown, who was a keen rugby player, noticed he was aching a lot more than usual after any form of exercise, taking three or four days to recover.

He was rushed to hospital on one occasion after his knee swelled up when trying to bend down.

He said: “My knee ballooned up. It was full of fluid and you could even see my kneecap.

“Everything went downhill from then. I felt like a 90-year-old man in a 20-year-old’s body.”

The former soldier, who left the army in 1994, said he was in and out of hospital for five months, having MRI scans and various types of medication.

This meant an end to his rugby career and he was still ill for more than a year later.

He said: “I couldn’t physically work for more than a year but I couldn’t sit around and do nothing. I wanted to work.”

He got a job as a garage mechanic where he worked for five years but had to give the job up last year when bending over the bonnets made his back worse.

Mr Brown, now a self-employed HGV lorry driver, said: “I don’t see why I should still be suffering now when I came out of the army when I was 25.”

He said he was concerned for the soldiers currently fighting in Afghanistan.

He added: “What’s happening now is not just physical, it’s mental. Later on in life it can come back and bite them. They’ve got to set up some form of programme.”

Mr Brown said he felt and his colleagues were “tossed to the side” but said that hopefully current studies into the Gulf War syndrome will help soldiers when they leave Afghanistan.

Help for UK Gulf War veterans and their families can be found at www.ngvfa.org.uk


SIDEBAR: MoD denies existence of 'syndrome' from First Gulf War

The First Gulf War started after Iraq invaded the Gulf state of Kuwait in August 1990 and ended with the liberation of Kuwait and after Iraq accepted all UN resolutions the following February.

The subject of Gulf War Syndrome has remained a controversial topic and has been linked by some to the troops’ exposure to depleted uranium used during the war.

A Ministry of Defence (MOD) spokesman said medical assistance is provided to veterans by the MOD’s medical assessment programme based at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, and the NHS.

He said financial support is also available to veterans and dependants through MOD war pensions and the armed forces occupational pension schemes, when illness or death is due to service.

Telegaph: UK Soldier died from exposure depleted uranium during Gulf War

The death of a former soldier from colon cancer was "more likely than not" caused by his exposure to depleted uranium during the first Gulf War, an inquest has heard.

Published: 2:22PM BST 10 Sep 2009

(United Kingdom -- Telegraph.co.uk) -- The hearing in Smethwick, West Midlands, was told that Stuart Dyson died 17 years after being exposed to particles of the substance used in munitions during the 1991 conflict.

Mr Dyson, who served in the Royal Pioneer Corps, died aged 39 in June last year after a battle against colon cancer which spread to his liver and spleen.

Giving evidence to an inquest jury, Professor Christopher Busby, an expert on the effects of uranium on health, said Mr Dyson's cancer was ''more likely than not'' caused by ingestion and inhalation of the substance during his service in the Gulf.

The witness, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster, added: ''It (uranium) is actually much more dangerous than it originally appeared to be.

''The interesting thing about Mr Dyson's cancer is that he was extremely young - the chances of him acquiring cancer were something like six per million per year.''

Professor Busby said he had visited Iraq in 2000 and had found particles of depleted uranium with dangerously high radiation levels near the wrecks of tanks destroyed during the war.

The expert told the jury: ''We also know in this case that he was cleaning tanks and generally walking about in Gulf War One, where there was a significant amount of depleted uranium in the air.

''Mr Dyson was exposed by inhalation and ingestion.

''My feeling about Mr Dyson's colon cancer is that it was produced because he ingested some radioactive material and it became trapped in his intestine.

''It's certainly much more probable than not that Mr Dyson's cancer was caused by exposure to depleted uranium.''

Mr Dyson's widow Elaine, who lives in Brownhills, West Midlands, said her husband had suffered from a variety of complaints after leaving the military.

The soldier served in the Gulf between January and May 1991, cleaning tanks before they were sent back the UK, and left the Army in 1992.

Mrs Dyson said her husband had once been very fit, even boxing and playing rugby for the army, but had suffered sleep problems, night sweats, creaking bones, and cold sores as his health deteriorated over the years.

''He was convinced that his time in the Gulf was where the cancer had come from,'' she told the inquest.

Mrs Dyson said there was no history of colon cancer in her husband's family and his immune system had appeared to "run down" once he returned from the Gulf.

Summing up the evidence to the jury panel, Black Country coroner Robin Balmain said he had received a submission from a scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, who had concluded Mr Dyson's cancer arose naturally and there was no evidence to associate it with his exposure to depleted uranium.

The MoD, which was informed in March that Mr Busby had been called to give expert evidence, was not represented at the hearing.

"It is in my view somewhat disappointing that the Ministry of Defence chose not to come here and assist you with any expert evidence which might have put forward the contrary view," the coroner told the jury.