Gulf War Illness - lessons learned from the Persian Gulf War - Brief Article

DoD looks to the past to provide guidance for future

WASHINGTON (February 9, 2001)--As the Army Reserve commemorates the 10-year anniversary of Desert Shield/Desert Storm Gulf War veterans and observers have commented on the war's stunning operational success while others find value in exploring the legacy of the efficient victory and its implications for the future. Perhaps, for the Gulf War veteran, the ultimate commemoration lies in the commitment made by the Defense Department that lessons learned from the Gulf War will be incorporated into health programs to better protect those who will serve in the future.

Among those lessons, particularly for the Reservist, is the importance of maintaining medical and environmental surveillance and medical record-keeping during all deployments, training troops on safety precautions to guard against environmental hazards, providing information about vaccines when they are administered and modernizing equipment to minimize and record false chemical alarms.

Meaningful changes have also been made in the manner in which the DoD communicates with its service members. During and after the war many veterans had unanswered health-related questions about smoke from oil well fires, battlefield exposures to depleted uranium, vaccines and medications, alarms from chemical detectors and incomplete medical records. To remedy that situation, Department of Defense opened the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, headed by Bernard Rostker. The exhaustive investigation into the incidents that happened on the Gulf War battlefield was undertaken by military and civilian professionals and helped Gulf War veterans to better understand the events of the war and how those events may have affected the health of veterans who served there. Channels of communication were opened to veterans through an extensive outreach program that included 31 town hall meetings and visits to 72 military installations; regular briefings to veteran service organizations that resulted in reaching the organizations' nearly 10 million members; the Internet web site, GulfLINK, and a newsletter, GulfNEWS; interactive e-mail system and a toll-free hotline telephone number staffed with veterans that offers one-to-one assistance to veterans who call with questions. The DoD has gained increased competence in dealing with veterans' health concerns through these new ways of interacting with servicemembers.

As the formal investigation into Gulf War battlefield events came to a close, last year, it became apparent to department leadership, veteran service organizations and the Presidential Special Oversight Board that a permanent organization was needed to meet the veterans' current and future deployment health-related concerns. With a broadened scope and more expansive name, the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, Medical Readiness and Military Deployment was established in August 2000 to ensure that lessons learned from the Gulf War about medical readiness are applied to current and future military deployments.

"We want to work closely with all entities in DoD that have responsibility for force health protection and health care," said chief of staff Michael Kilpatrick, M.D. "It is critical that those who are deployed understand all aspects of the force health protection process and its individual measures. Our commitment to help Gulf War veterans will continue uninterrupted."

Reservists face a wide range of stressful circumstances and environmental health risks while deployed. To assist them with these challenges, the new organization's most important mission is to provide all those involved in deployments with information concerning non-traditional health threats.

"We believe issues resembling those of the Gulf War may arise from current and future deployments, and without a permanent organization dedicated to working with veterans, the Department of Defense could revisit some adverse Gulf War experiences," said Dale A. Vesser, acting special assistant today.

Vesser, Kilpatrick and other staff members will continue to maintain open communication with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Vesser hopes the new organization will play a key role in working with other DoD organizations to integrate deployment health-related lessons learned into future force health protection doctrine and policy.

Kilpatrick commented that the organization's focus in working with the Reserve and National Guard components is to ensure that servicemembers pre-deployment health is sustained and assessed during and after deployment. In addition, DoD efforts need to address their healthcare concerns adequately post-deployment.

Two-way communication with servicemembers, veterans and the general public will continue through GulfLINK at http://www.gulflink.osd.mil until the new web site is launched in the spring of 2001.

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