Monday, November 7, 2005
Gulf War vets to testify before Congress
They want U.S. to recognize health problems as service-related
By MIKE BARBER
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/247343_msvets07.html
Veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War felled by a disproportionate number of
neurological disorders are picking themselves up for one last hurrah.
The fight this time involves summoning up the energy to turn out to address in a
congressional hearing this month government funding and response to their needs
after exposure to an array of toxins during and after the first war against
Iraq.
"It's our last chance to stand up together because many of us are so ill," says
Julie Mock of Bothell, president of the National Gulf War Resource Center,
herself afflicted with the fatigue and pain of service-connected multiple
sclerosis.
A flurry of activity followed after a Seattle Post-Intelligencer story in August
documenting how Mock and a growing number of fellow 1991 Gulf War veterans
suffer from multiple sclerosis, though not all may be recognized as having
service-related illnesses.
The story included an account from Liz Burris of Tacoma, a Desert Storm veteran
and former Fort Lewis Army officer whose multiple sclerosis also is
service-connected. Burris now is co-founder of MSVets.com, a Yahoo! Web site
that has attracted nearly 500 Gulf War veterans nationwide who display symptoms
of multiple sclerosis.
Persian Gulf War veterans were galvanized to sign up to testify at the hearings
before Congress on Nov. 15 to push for an additional $10 million in funding for
Gulf War veterans' illnesses research, Mock said.
Meanwhile, the Northwest chapter of the Paralyzed Veterans of America last month
unanimously passed a motion asking the national organization to back the cause
of veterans of that war who now display symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
Of the 700,000 U.S. troops who served in the Persian Gulf in 1991, a
disproportionate number have come down with serious neurological disorders. More
than 65 percent have sought health care for service-related ailments. Nearly
200,000 are receiving disability compensation -- twice the rate as vets from
World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
Veterans point to a lineup of potential suspects behind their afflictions:
disease-carrying sand fleas, anti-biological warfare pills and a poison plume
covering a wide area after U.S. troops inadvertently incinerated Iraqi rockets
containing sarin, a nerve gas, at Khamisiyah, Iraq.
Brain-cancer deaths; amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou
Gehrig's disease; and fibromyalgia which all attack the nervous system, are now
linked by Pentagon and national Institute of Medicine studies to 1991 service in
the Persian Gulf.
Mock, Burris and others call for mass screenings and widening the window in
which veterans can apply for disability benefits, especially for multiple
sclerosis.
Unless veterans document symptoms within seven years of discharge, as Mock and
Burris knew to do, they might not qualify as having service-connected
disabilities.
The federal government this summer began notifying about 300,000 veterans of the
possibility of brain cancer being linked to units exposed to the plume of sarin
in 1991.
The Nov. 15 hearing before the House Government Reform Committee's subcommittee
on national security will consider a bipartisan amendment to the 2006 Defense
Appropriations Bill co-sponsored by U.S. Reps. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, the
ranking minority member, and Bernard Sanders, an independent from Vermont.
The amendment would earmark $10 million from the Army to uncover physiological
mechanisms behind Gulf War diseases.
U.S. Rep. Christopher Shay, the Connecticut Republican who heads the
subcommittee, already has held 17 hearings on Gulf War veterans' illnesses over
the last decade. He has said that those veterans have persisted in the face of
"entrenched indifference and bureaucratic inertia" to prove post-war illnesses
connected to exposures to various toxins in wartime.
In Seattle, Michael Killen, a Marine Corps veteran of the 1991 Gulf War, said
the upcoming congressional hearings "are very important because so many people
who served overseas in that war came down with MS."
They need the government to look outside the seven years from date of discharge
in which evidence of a disability can be linked to service, said Killen, who now
helps other veterans.
"I know a number of 1991 veterans outside the seven-year presumptive period that
are frustrated with the whole system altogether," he said.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Persian Gulf War veterans say fellow veterans who cannot sign up to attend the
Shay committee hearings can send testimony online to
Kristine.McElroy@mail.house.gov
The record will remain open for two days after the hearing. All written
testimony will be entered into the Congressional Record. Name, contact
information, branch, dates served and a statement of the event that occurred,
problem resulting from that action and proposed solution should be included.
P-I reporter Mike Barber can be reached at 206-448-8018 or
mikebarber@seattlepi.com