§ Mr. ToddTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what progress has been made on the Gulf Veterans Medical Assessment Programme; and if he will make a statement. [151814]
§ Mr. SpellarThe Gulf Veterans Medical Assessment Programme has been in existence since October 1993 and at the end of February of this year 3,105 veterans had been seen. A paper on the findings from the first 1,000 veterans was published in theBritish Medical Journal in January 1999. A paper on the second 1,000 veterans will shortly be published in the Journal of the Royal Army Medical Corps and a paper on the third 1,000 veterans, and the 3,000 in total, is almost ready for submission for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. A presentation based on this last paper was made by the head of the GVMAP at a recent conference on Gulf illnesses in the United States.
Psychiatric illneses are predominant among the illnesses seen at the GVMAP, of which Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, with or without co-morbidity, is the most common. The GVMAP physicians have found a few other Gulf related illnesses, predominantly of a respiratory or dermatological nature. They have not found any evidence of a unique syndrome among Gulf veterans or any unusual pattern of disease among veterans who attended the programme. They have not seen any evidence of increased immunological, neurological or renal diseases, or the appearance of any unusual cancers. The symptoms presented by veterans who have attended the GVMAP are similar to those reported by members of the general population attending their GPs' surgeries.
§ Mr. HancockTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence what repots the Department has received or produced relating to neurological damage sustained by service personnel in the Gulf War; and if he will publish them. [152154]
§ Mr. SpellarThe Ministry of Defence has not received any reports relating to neurological damage in Gulf veterans which have not been published in scientific journals or are otherwise publicly available. Nor has the Ministry of Defence produced any such reports.
The MOD is currently sponsoring research at King's College Medical School which is investigating neuromuscular problems in Gulf veterans. The results of this research will be published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature in due course.