§ Dr. IddonTo ask the Secretary of State for Defence if he will list the current research programmes funded by the UK Government that involve examinations of UK Gulf War veterans. [78607]
§ Dr. MoonieThe current research programmes funded by the Ministry of Defence involving medical examinations of United Kingdom Gulf veterans are as follows
A study by researchers at Guy's, King's and St. Thomas' School of Medicine who carried out clinical tests on number of Gulf veterans who reported significant neuromuscular symptoms in their responses to an earlier epidemiological study funded by the United States Department of Defense. Work is now complete and the findings are expected to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal before the end of this year.A study by a team at Manchester Royal Infirmary who analysed the levels of paraoxanase in blood samples collected by researchers at Guy's, King's and St. Thomas' School of Medicine (blood sample collection was not Ministry of Defence funded). Work is now complete and the results are expected to be published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.The Gulf Veterans' Medical Assessment Programme (GVMAP) established in 1993, continues to see patients following a referral from their doctors. Patients seen at the GVMAP undergo a battery of standard tests and if clinically justified, further tests are carried out. The clinical findings for 3,000 service and ex-service patients who attended the GVMAP in the period between 11 October 1993 and 18 June 2001 were published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine on 1 October 2002.