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The military displayed reckless disregard for the
well-being of U.S. servicemen and women by administering experimental
drugs to them during the Persian Gulf War, Sen. Jay Rockefeller says.
The drugs may have caused the mysterious illnesses collectively known
as gulf war syndrome, and they probably did not protect soldiers
against biological or chemical weapons, according to a 53-page report
written by staff for the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, whose
chairman is Rockefeller, D-W.Va.
"On far too many occasions, the Pentagon has shown a reckless
disregard for the health and well-being of U.S. service members,"
Rockefeller said. "Soldiers who are exposed to dangerous substances
without their knowledge or consent become veterans who do not receive
the medical care and compensation to which they are entitled."
According to the report, the Pentagon did not get consent from many
people taking the drugs because of a wartime waiver granted by the
Food and Drug Administration. Even with the waiver, however, officials
were required to warn everyone of the risk of the drugs, but they did
not, the report said.
Some troops were threatened with punishment if they did not obey
orders to take the chemicals, the report said. Many gulf war veterans
also were ordered to tell no one about their vaccinations.
Rockefeller compared use of the drugs during the gulf war to
gas-chamber experiments involving sailors and soldiers in the 1940s,
radiation experiments from the 1940s to the 1960s, LSD experiments in
the 1960s and the testing of biological and chemical agents that
continue today at the military's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.
Pentagon spokesman Jim Turner declined immediate comment Wednesday,
saying the department had not seen the report.
But the Defense Department has said the drugs were administered only
after the FDA approved their use for the war.
Although the drugs had not been approved for commercial marketing,
they "were specifically allowed by FDA for the special military uses
proposed by DoD. FDA allowed these uses because there was evidence
they would be effective and no recognized alternative existed and
because FDA thought the use would be safe," said Dr. Edward Martin -
principal assistant secretary of defense for health affairs - during a
committee hearing in May.
The most common symptoms reported by 150 servicemen and women surveyed
by committee staff included fatigue, skin problems, memory loss, joint
pain, headaches, personality changes, diarrhea, trouble with vision,
shortness of breath, numbness, sores, bleeding and fever, the report
said.
Some documents collected by the report's researchers suggest Pentagon
officials understood the drugs' dangers before the gulf war, "but
these risks were ignored because of fear that Iraq would use chemical
and biological weapons," said a statement from Rockefeller's office.
The report concluded that the Pentagon had no proof that the drugs
were safe and effective when it provided them to troops in the Persian
Gulf in 1990 and 1991 or to servicemen and women deployed to the gulf
two months ago. "There is no question that U.S.
troops were not adequately protected when they were sent to the
Persian Gulf, and the investigational drugs and vaccines that were
meant to help them could have harmed them instead," Rockefeller said.
The report recommended the FDA deny Pentagon requests for
informed-consent waivers during war or the threat of war.
It also recommended that Congress:
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