Thread by @ABrokenBattery

🧵Gulf War Syndrome & Simon Wessely

"For 30 years they have been disowned, ignored and lied to by consecutive governments, with no positive answers to their questions about exposure to toxic substances and gases & the affect it had on them"

bbc.com/news/health-61…

"Even when I was still in the military, I was getting illness after illness... when I questioned whether it could be anything to do with my service in the Gulf or what we were exposed to, the military line was 'You're talking nonsense, there's no evidence.'"

But new research links the nerve agent Sarin to Gulf War Syndrome in >1000 veterans.

Sarin was released into the air when caches of Iraqi chemical weapons were bombed, it is usually deadly but soldiers were exposed to low doses which is thought to be the cause of GWS.

In 2011 the Ministry of Defence said:

"The UK and the US have undertaken a substantial amount of research into Gulf veterans' illness. The research has indicated that there is no illness which is specific to Gulf veterans."

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-121958…

"Professor Simon Wessely is director of the King's Centre for Military Health Research in London and an adviser to the Ministry of Defence.

He does not believe Gulf War Syndrome exists as a distinct illness."

Wessely said "Is there a problem? Yes there is. Is it Gulf War Syndrome or isn't it? I think that's a statistical and technical question that's of minor interest...

I don't think we're ever going to be able to take it any further now"

Wessely said "Even if you gave me £10m [for research], I wouldn't know what to do with it...

I think the only thing worth spending money on is trying to help those who are ill."

Wessely favours psychological explanations

"The only thing that could have affected so many different people was stress, especially anxiety about chemical weapons, misinformation about Gulf war syndrome & the many vaccinations Gulf troops received."

web.archive.org/web/2016012916…

Wessely argued that the symptoms and concerns were taken up by the media which played a big role:

“the transmission of rumour was a significant part of the very construction of the condition itself.”

me-pedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wes…

In 2006 Wessely gave a talk about Gulf War Illness and started with the familiar line that he was "nervous" about the talk and had received "some intimidatory threats".

vimeo.com/52995882#t=60m…

At 1:00:05 Wessely was asked about research in the US showing higher rates of illness in troops closer to the front & how very low doses of nerve agents with no acute symptoms give rise to prolonged chronic illness many years afterwards.

The audience member that asked the question sounds like Professor Malcolm Hooper a passionate critic of the psychological approach to ME/CFS that was devised by Wessely & has dominated care for the last 30 years but has recently been abandoned.

me-pedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_H…

Wessely responded - I don't think the evidence is compelling, if chemical weapons were used there would have been casualties. I've never seen any convincing evidence they were used. I don't think thats credible. I think there are many other pointers that are much more compelling.

Wessely was awarded a Knighthood for services to military healthcare and psychological medicine in 2013.

"His academic work has led to a better understanding of Gulf War Illness and to more effective psychological support for the Armed Services."

gov.uk/government/new…

Wessely's work on ME/CFS has also been discredited. Research supporting his treatments was all graded as 'low' or 'very low' quality by NICE in 2021. The treatments were withdrawn because are ineffective and potentially harmful.

More info:

Wessely also suggested psychological factors were responsible for ill health reported after contamination of the water supply in Camelford in 1988.

He was wrong and the UK government formally apologized 25 years later.

Wessely also argued that ill health reported following the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11, was a “consequence of an ideology that tells us that our physical environment is responsible for most of our bodily discomforts and ills.”

spiked-online.com/2002/05/23/wor…

"Tens of thousands of people got sick, and many have died since then from their illnesses contracted at Ground Zero... Researchers have identified more than 60 types of cancer and about two dozen other conditions that are linked to Ground Zero exposures."

scientificamerican.com/article/health…

Thanks to @maxwhd for highlighting the Gulfwar Video.

The Gulf War Illness Breakthrough and why it Matters to ME/CFS/FM and long COVID
by Cort Johnson

healthrising.org/blog/2022/05/2…