Statement of Congressman Bernie Sanders - Gulf War Illness Funding

STATEMENT OF CONGRESSMAN BERNIE SANDERS
Gulf War Illness Funding
2-14-05

We're here today to tell veterans that we're not going to forget their service to this country, and that we are determined to do all that we can to address the problems they may have developed in combat. And while today I am going to focus on the illnesses associated with service in the first Gulf War, that same holds true for those who served in WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. We cannot abandon those who responded to their country's call to serve.

While a lot of attention today is focused on Iraq and Afghanistan let us not forget that over 100,000 veterans from the first Gulf War continue to suffer from a yet not fully understood debilitating illness commonly known as Gulf War Illness. The symptoms of this illness include flu-like symptoms, chronic fatigue, rashes, joint and muscular pain, headaches, memory loss, reproductive problems, depression, loss of concentration, gastro-intestinal problems and other maladies.

For over a decade now Chris Shays (R-CT.), the Chairman of the Government Reform Committee's National Security Subcommittee and I have worked together to see that the federal government keeps faith with the men and women who are struggling with Gulf War illness. We have been joined by other members in the House and such private citizens as Ross Perot and Jim Binns, now the Chairman of the Department of Veterans Affairs Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illness. And it has not been an easy effort.

When Gulf War veterans first started reporting a number of physical ailments, the response of the Pentagon was that it was a psychological problem - something they were imagining. Then the VA and DoD claimed that the illness was caused by "stress." Those of us in Congress most involved with this issue, as well as many cutting edge researchers and the veterans themselves, strongly disagreed with that conclusion. And we persevered - hearing after hearing, conference after conference.

Unfortunately, year after year the Pentagon and the VA clung to its position - a position that even they now acknowledges was wrong. But many of us in the Congress continued to press the Department of Defense to support the breakthrough research that was finally allowing us to get an understanding of the causes of this terrible and debilitating illness

The good news now is that real progress is being made in our understanding of Gulf War Illness. Medical researchers like Dr. Robert Haley of the University of Texas and other researchers can now measure real physical neurological damage in many Gulf War Illness sufferers. These injuries are likely the result of low level exposure to chemical nerve agents during the Gulf War. Much of the evidence suggests that exposure to these nerve agents is the direct result of the destruction of a major chemical weapons dump in Iraq by the U.S. military that created a plume of chemicals that may have exposed hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel and civilians in the region.

In hearings held before the National Security subcommittee, on which I am a senior member, last year, we heard from Dr. Haley about the status of his research. Dr. Haley's findings were corroborated at the hearing by Dr. Paul Greengard, a 2000 Nobel Laureate and Head of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience at The Rockefeller University. He agreed that research into neurological damage caused by low level nerve agents is the most promising in terms of finding a cause and a treatment for Gulf War Illness.

Significantly there has finally been a change in attitude in the Pentagon and the Veterans Administration about this illness. It appears that both now acknowledge that this is a very real, physical injury. But this acknowledgement, that the veterans of the First Gulf War have been suffering for over a decade, would be hollow indeed if the federal government did not invest the resources to understand the cause of and treat Gulf War Illness.

Therefore, I am proud to announce today that as a result of an amendment that I offered with the support of Mr. Shays in the Department of Defense Appropriations bill, $5 million will be going to support breakthrough research to investigate the link between Gulf War Illness and exposure to low-levels of nerve gas or other toxins that our soldiers might have been exposed to. What I am particularly excited about is that some of this funding will be going to Dr. Paul Greengard, a Nobel Prize winner and one of the world's leading experts on biochemical mechanisms that control brain cells. Dr. Greengard's research had helped uncover the molecular mechanisms involved in Parkinson's disease, which lead to the disease's standard treatment today. Dr. Greengard will be examining how sarin damages the machinery inside brain cells. He will also study which chemical compounds can be used to correct the abnormal brain biochemistry. In other words, how do we develop a cure for this brain damage and for Gulf War Illness caused by sarin exposure? The fact that we now have one of the world's leading scientists involved in this issue cannot be underestimated.

I would like to point out that this research is important not just for Gulf War veterans but also can provide valuable information that can be used to increase our capability to defend and to treat our troops and civilians in the event they are exposed to a chemical attack. Importantly, this research could be very important in helping us understand the biochemical mechanisms of similar brain disorders that take place in civilian society, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivity.

With the help of the veterans community, who continue to stand by their ailing comrades from the First Gulf War, we have made tremendous progress from the early 1990s when the bureaucrats said the problem was imagined. This $5 million may well lead to a definitive understanding of Gulf War Illness. But if more is needed, I and other friends of veterans will be there. We won't stop until we have done everything humanly possible for those suffering with Gulf War Illness.

http://bernie.house.gov/statements/20050214165351.asp