Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: Our own worst enemy

Friday, Nov. 5, 1999 | 9:05 a.m.

Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.

Some veterans of long-term shooting wars look askance at the large numbers of complaints coming from Gulf War veterans. Just the other day the Department of Veterans Affairs told us that 16 percent of the 700,000 Gulf War vets are receiving disability compensation. This sounds outrageous when compared to the 8.6 percent of the remaining World War II and only 5 percent of Korean War veterans who are receiving disability compensation. There are 9.6 percent of Vietnam era veterans who are receiving benefits and 9.5 of the peacetime veterans get checks.

Large numbers of the WWII vets who were seriously ill and have already died may be the cause of a lower rate of disability checks. Why even a smaller percentage from Korea receive these checks is tough to explain. It could be that we left more than 8,000 unaccounted for behind as dead or in enemy hands. Better and quicker medical help may explain the 9.6 percent rate of Vietnam veterans getting aid. It's much easier to explain than the equal percent of peacetime veterans being paid compensation checks.

But let's get back to the Gulf War veterans, where the largest number of claims for service-connected disability have been knee problems. Following knee claims were, according to the Associated Press, skeletal system disability, lumbosacral strain, arthritis due to trauma, scars, hearing loss, hypertension, intervertebral disc syndrome, tinnitus and osteoarthritis. Sounds like the results of one helluva tough football game.

What bothers me are the "undiagnosed illness" claims, of which 3,077 were granted and 8,330 denied. What do they mean "undiagnosed"? This sounds like the words used when Vietnam vets came back and the military and VA didn't understand the damage Agent Orange could do to those who came in contact with it.

Recently the Department of Defense released a study which suggests that PB, short for pyridostigmine bromide, given to 250,000 of the Gulf War troops, could be the cause of some "undiagnosed" illnesses. This drug was given to counter the possible effects of soman nerve gas. Is it the cause of what has become known as Gulf War Syndrome? Nausea, skin rashes, fatigue, aching joints, digestive problems, chronic pain and memory problems have all been regarded as syndrome symptoms.

In 1994 this column reported that only 3 percent of the Gulf War veterans reported health problems. That was three years after the war and now, five years later, 16 percent are receiving disability compensation checks. Also, in 1994 claims of an illness syndrome were blasted by Dr. Barry Rumack, a toxicology expert from the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Also, Virginia Stephanakis of the Army Surgeon General's office jumped all over the so-called Gulf War Syndrome theory.

Two years ago the British began to tie the syndrome to something we did to our troops being more a cause than what the enemy did. Professor Graham Rook and Dr. Alimuddin Zumla looked closely at the vaccinations given the troops and the insecticides they used. This combination suppressed one part of a person's immune system and made another part extremely sensitive to outside irritants.

According to the Sunday Times of London report two years ago: "Many of the vaccines given to British and American troops in the gulf, including cholera, anthrax and bubonic plague, are believed to cause the precise immune system changes described by Rook.

"French troops, who did not receive the same massive drug cocktails as their American and British counterparts, have not suffered the same incidence of Gulf War Syndrome."

Now our research has turned, like the British, into looking at what we did to our own troops. Were the PB pills, an "investigational drug," a contributing factor to the resulting "undiagnosed illnesses"? I'd say it's about time the "undiagnosed illness" claims that were denied be reopened and the research pick up speed.