|
Forwarded
with permission and for
widespread circulation and distribution. Thank
you, Diana Buckland
MCS-Global Global
Recognition Campaign for Multiple Chemical Sensitivity/chemical injury
and other
chemically induced illnesses & diseases
www.mcs-global.org
Allan
E.Limburg,CVO,(Retd),
Wheelers
Hill, Vic.
Aus. 3159 2
March 2006. (KWVHealthS
Report 2005 - D). (update4)
Mr
Bob Morris, President
Korean War Veterans Australian
Recognition
Committee. Dear
Bob, The
3 Study Reports on Mortality & Health of Korean War Veterans & The
Health Study 2005: Australians of the Korean War After
1945 (the start of the disastrous Chemical
Plague) the Korean War was the first war in their military
history in which Australian military personnel were regularly exposed,
often simultaneously, without any essential precautions whatever, to a
diverse, wide range of toxic/neurotoxic
chemicals, including insecticides, pesticides, miticides, rodenticides,
toxic paints, herbicides, toxic pharmaceuticals, inerts,
solvents, toxic petrochemicals, Radon gas and other toxic chemicals
in accordance with written instructions in the Australian, British and
Canadian “Handbook
of Army Health 1950”
and other written instructions issued in the field including the then
secret instruction issued by the US Commander of 8th Army
authorizing aerial spraying of our own forces with toxic chemicals using
a variety of aircraft - albeit in all cases no doubt with the best of
intentions as at that time the terrible effects of such exposures were
apparently not known or understood. As
the decades went by after the Korean War there gradually became an
increasingly concerned awareness that all was not well with those Korean
War veterans. For unexplained, unknown reasons too many were dying too
early and of those remaining too many, confused and bewildered, were
complaining of an ever increasing wide range of debilitating symptoms
and illnesses which their doctors, untrained in these matters, did not
or did not want to understand. For
almost 50 years all efforts to get the authorities and the medical
profession interested in their plight were ignored. Following
earlier, unsuccessful attempts to get the Department of Veterans’
Affairs (DVA) to undertake studies for Korean War veterans I was asked
to join with a small group which included Dr John Bradley to fight for
acceptance. A small, independent committee was established. As a result
of a well supported submission carefully prepared by Dr John Bradley and
myself the then Minister for Veterans’ Affairs very reluctantly,
having rejected earlier attempts, was forced to agree in October 1997 to
a Mortality Study to be completed in 3 years. But he would not approve
any limited Health studies at that time - they only followed much later
after much additional pressure. The
drawn out battle to finally get what is a truncated Health study against
entrenched denial, obstruction, intransigence and obfuscation took a
heavy toll on our small committee. No doubt this was a contributing
cause in the untimely, unexpected deaths of both our Chairman and Dr
Bradley. As predicted the resultant Health Study Report released in 2005
has significant shortcomings, and like the Mortality Study Report,
deliberately and wrongly avoided addressing the effects of toxic
chemicals despite our best efforts. The first meeting of the Mortality
Study committees was in February 1988 without an essential Terms of
Reference (which were apparently never promulgated) and without an
essential accepted Protocol which was apparently only internally
produced some years later (and not provided to us when requested) and
which was clearly written to deliberately exclude (1) all matters
concerning toxic chemicals and the many illnesses which can result there
from and (2) all our other recommendations for inclusion in the contents
of that document, contrary to assurances from the Minister. 1.
The Mortality Study Report –
Mortality
Study 2003: Korean Veterans of the Korean War
(1950-1956).
It was produced more than 6 years after our request was approved. It was
quietly published on 19 March 2004 on the Internet: http://www.dva.gov.au/media/publicat/2003/kwmortality/ Surprisingly,
despite its dramatic, disturbing conclusions that reveal elevated causes
of death significantly higher that those of the cohort or in the Vietnam
Veterans Morality Study Report it appears to have received little or no
media coverage or political or medical comment. It deliberately avoided
addressing the effects of exposures to toxic chemicals – one of the 3
major issues to be examined. The figures provide at least indirect
support to the reality of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) or
Chemical Injury or Chemically Induced Illnesses or Diseases as a
clinical disease not of psychological or psychogenic origin. Army
Veterans had a 31% increased rate for all cause mortality and for
13 other causes, namely circulatory diseases were elevated by 20% with
rates from ischemic heart disease and stroke elevated by 18% and 22%
respectively, neoplasms
by 41%, external causes by 58%, suicides by 53%, death rate from all
respiratory diseases by 48%, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease by
69%, repiratory
diseases excluding chronic obstructive pulmonary disease by 57%, all
digestive diseases by 57%, including diseases of the liver, gallbladder
and bile ducts by 51%, peptic ulcer by 90% and alcoholic liver
disease elevated by 47%, compared to equivalent Australian males. On
5 April 2004 I forwarded a brief summary of that report (kwvmsr5) to the
MCS Global Recognition Campaign for acceptance of all chemically induced
illnesses, diseases and injury affecting civilians and military
personnel including MCS – together with a signed copy of a letter
supporting the contents of my research by Malcolm Hooper Ph.D., B.Pharm.C.Chem.,MRIC,
Emeritus
Professor of Medicinal Chemistry, University of Sunderland, Chief
Scientific Adviser to the Gulf Veterans’ Association who, at his
request, had visited my home on 1 October 2003 to study my research and
be given copies of much of it. Both were published on the MCS global
website: http://www.health-report.co.uk/toxic_chemical_assault_on_a_species.htm 2.
The Cancer Incidence Study Report - Korean
War Veterans Cancer Incidence Study 2003 was published 2
December 2003 more than 6 years after our request was approved. Similar
comments apply. In relation to cancers the increased or elevated death
rate overall for lung cancer was 47%, gastrointestinal cancer by 18%, colo-rectal
cancer by 18%, genito-urinary
cancer by 24%, cancers of the head and neck by 96%, cancer of the oesophagus
by 59%, cancer of the larynx by 95% and cancer of unknown primary site
by 5l%. The
dramatically
elevated rates for cancers for the army for those listed were 69%, 24%, 22%,
90%, 82%, 67%, 144% and 77% respectively. The report can be downloaded
from: http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm?type=detail&id=9589
http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/index.cfm/title/9589 3.
The Health Study Report - Health
Study 2005: Korean Veterans of the Korean War (1950-1956)
was published in 2005, 8 years after our request was approved.
Surprisingly, despite its dramatic, disturbing conclusions that reveal
dramatically elevated levels in (1) general poor health, (2) in each of
the only 15 medical conditions investigated, (3) PTSD and (4) a death
rate all significantly greater than the cohort of average Australian
males it appears to have received little or no media coverage or
political or medical comment. It deliberately avoided addressing the
effects of exposures to toxic chemicals – one of the 3 major issues to
be examined. The figures provide at least indirect support to the
reality of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) or Chemical Injury or
Chemically Induced Illnesses or Diseases as a clinical disease not of
psychological or psychogenic origin.
It was also quietly released in 2005 on the Internet:
http://www.dva.gov.au/media/publicat/2005/health_study_2005/ Korean
War Veterans
are defined in each of those study reports as members of the Australian
Army, RAN or RAAF who served in the Korea Operational Area between 27
June 1950 and 19 April 1956 in accordance with Schedule 2 of the VEA
1986. Thus in accordance with a wealth of consistent, binding, Federal
legislation each of those Korean War veterans who served there between
those dates were legally on Operational Service, Active Service, War
Service and Hazardous Service and all have Qualifying Service and all
deaths of those veterans who died as a result of that service are
legally War-caused deaths. Every Korean War veteran who served there
between those dates can download from the government website his
personal details as a war veteran and a certificate of his War Service.
The detailed statistical findings in those 3 reports are based on that
consistent, binding Federal legislation: http://www.koreanroll.gov.au/history.aspx In
relation to the results published in this report, as they did in the
Mortality and Cancer Incidence reports, support our earlier suspicions
that our veterans were apparently dying too early in unusually large
numbers and that they were suffering alarmingly high rates of ill
health. The two committees are to be complimented on the detailed
results published. They reveal that veterans of the Korean War have what
appear to be dramatic increases in mortality, cancer incidence and poor
health in each of the only 15 illnesses and diseases studied (their
“a priori” list) as compared to a cohort of average
Australian males. The results strongly vindicate the reasons for the
request we made. This
latest Health Study Report found that 50 years after that war only 40%
(7,500) of the 17,900 who served were still alive in 2003 and that
compared to other men of the same age:
1. They were more likely to suffer health and psychological
problems than other men of the same age.
2. They were six times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD).
3. They had greater levels of anxiety and depression.
4. They had higher alcohol and cigarette consumption.
5. They had lower life satisfaction.
6. They had a four times poorer quality of life on multiple
dimensions, including
physical health, psychological functioning, social
relationships and environment.
7. They had excess medical conditions and hospitalisations.
8. 33% met the criteria for PTSD.
9. 31% met the criteria for anxiety.
10. 24% met the criteria for depression.
11. Of the only 15 medical conditions investigated those veterans
suffered 1.5 to 3 times more frequent asthma, high blood pressure,
stroke, heart attack, liver disease, arthritis, kidney disease,
diabetes, melanoma, other skin cancers, other cancers, stomach or
duodenal ulcer, partial or complete blindness and partial or complete
deafness.
12. Veterans who reported experiencing heavy combat during the
Korean War were 15 times more likely to meet criteria for PTSD and that
lower ranked veterans were much more likely to have poor health. As
a result of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs having very little
information, or it had been destroyed (of which there was evidence), the
Chairman of the DVA study committee requested me, assisted by Dr John
Bradley, to prepare a series of research papers (finally totaling 39)
for issue to each member of both committees to study, vote on, with any
dissensions with the contents to be forwarded to us for comment – none
were received. Despite the fact they were dispassionate and well
supported by world wide eminent scientists, doctors and others in signed
statements and references, detailed archival research and signed
statements from veterans there appears to strangely be no reference to
them in all the many references quoted in the report. The
study has demonstrated that long-term effects of war service can be
severe and can still present 50 years after the end of hostilities (19
April 1956). The report stated that even those statistically dramatic
figures already highlighted in this and the two earlier reports had
probably been underestimated. That
Health Study report stated - “it
was unable to study chemical risk factors.” This was
because it did not attempt to do so.
On page 136 it states –
“As this Health Study was
conducted so long after the Korean War and as the questionnaire needed
to be sufficiently short so as to be easily completed . . . it did not
attempt to retrospectively collect information on veterans’
exposures to environmental or chemical risk factors in In
doing so they apparently fell back on the now world-wide, highly
denigrated, prochemical, International Programme
of Chemical Safety (IPCS) conference held in secret in Berlin in 1996
attended only be chemical representatives with the deliberate aim of
wrongly giving a name change from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity to what
Dr Grace Ziem,MD called an idiomoronic
term - Iatrogenic Environmental
Illness (IEI) - to indicate that it is not a clinical illness
but is of a psychogenic or psychiatric origin - a decision which, while
applauded by psychiatrists and chemical, agricultural and petroleum
companies, has been condemned by the IPCS itself, by the WHO, the ILO,
the UNEP, by 80 concerned eminent scientists, doctors and researchers,
and by 2/3rds of all the peer reviewed publications on this subject
since 1995. Yet astonishingly, 11 years later, it is still wrongly used
by our government, our Repatriation Medical Authority (RMA), our
Department of Health, our Departments of Defence
and Veterans’
Affairs (DVA), and others, and directly or indirectly by each of the
various Veteran Mortality and Health Study Committees (including those
for the Korean, Vietnam and Gulf Wars) for wrongly denying all such
claims and evidence. That argument was the basis for the determination
in 2001 by the RMA that MCS does not exist as a disease and their
unsubstantiated statement that all illnesses and diseases which result
from exposures to toxic chemicals are already adequately covered in
their Statements of Principles - see a criticism of that determination
by MCS Referral & Resources in the USA sent to the President of the
Australian Chemical Trauma Association (ACTA) included in part in: http://www.geocities.com/oprus2001/colonel.htm Like
the negative attitude of their government in the recent Independent
British Gulf Veterans Inquiry into all the Illnesses of their veterans
and the attitude of our government in our Korean, Vietnam and Gulf
studies, they apparently relied heavily on evidence from psychiatrists
to argue that all ill health, illnesses and diseases of veterans have a
psychiatric, not a physical or clinical cause and can be sheeted home to
Post Traumatic Disease. A study of our Vietnam veteran’s book – “The
Battle After The War, The Story of Australia’s
Vietnam Veterans” - by
Ambrose Crowe in which he states that in order to avoid accepting all
illnesses and diseases from exposures to toxic chemicals the government
decided to accept
them instead as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) supports this. A
professor at http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/collections/monash-authors/pre2000/1865080608.html It
is disturbing to note that the British tactics used to defeat the
justified claims of their Gulf War Veterans relied heavily on the
evidence of one of their government’s star witnesses - Professor Simon
Wessely (IoP), a
psychiatrist and surprisingly Director of the King’s Centre for
Military Health Research - a joint initiative of the Institute of
Psychiatry and the Dept of War Studies at King’s College London (note
the apparent over emphasis on psychiatry in warfare studies – similar
to that in our Korea War Veterans Health Study & Questionnaire) –
which claims to examine the cause of mental health and diseases of the
brain for war veterans (not clinical or physical illnesses from the
effects of toxic chemicals). On the basis of his evidence before the
Independent Inquiry into Gulf Veterans Illnesses and elsewhere,
including the contents of his many research papers,
you might conclude that his thoughts appear to be overly concerned with
matters psychiatric rather than clinical illnesses and diseases from
toxic chemical exposures. It appears that Professor Wessely
and his fellow psychiatrists believe that all illnesses and diseases of
war veterans are not caused by chemical toxins but from mental trauma
and PTSD. They support this by quoting the now highly denigrated IPCS
1996 http://www.meactionuk.org.uk/TESTIMONY_PRESENTED_AT_THE_INQUIRY_INTO_GWI.htm http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/information/index.html http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/research/iraq/index.html http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/research/index.html http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/information/publications.html http://www.kcl.ac.uk/kcmhr/teaching/index.html It
is noteworthy that while one of the three main areas to be examined in
those three Korean War veterans published studies, namely - all the
illnesses, diseases and deaths which result from both small and large
exposures to toxic chemicals (more than 160 of which were included in
the research papers prepared at the request of the Chairman) the
questionnaires on which the results of the Health Study 2005 were based
contained none of the symptoms of such exposures, none of the illnesses
and diseases which result from
such exposures and contained no questions as to veterans’ exposures to
those toxic chemicals. The report stated - “it
was unable to study chemical risk factors.” This was
because it did not attempt to do so.
http://www.health-report.co.uk/toxic_chemical_assault_on_a_species.htm This
despite the facts that: 1.
One of the 3 vital areas to be examined in the 3 studies was the
illnesses, diseases and deaths that can and do result from such
exposures. 2.
Korean War veterans were the first Australian troops to ever be exposed
to such a wide range of toxic chemicals following commencement of the
disastrous Chemical Plague
without any essential precautions in accordance with written
instructions. 3.
Such a study of those effects was historically important. 4.
The committees were provided with a list on only one page of the widely
accepted symptoms resulting from such exposures, and on only two pages
many of the accepted illnesses and diseases which result from such
exposures only requiring a cross or tick against each item on each page.
Whereas the questionnaire and reference material were heavily
weighted/over weighted for psychological/PTSD - 6 pages, smoking - 1
page (discounted), alcohol - 1 page (discounted) and veterans were asked
about only 15 medical conditions of the many illnesses and diseases
vital to all previous and future campaigns which ignored. 5.
The committees were provided with more than adequate information to
undertake meaningful statistical calculations of both small and large
exposures to toxic chemicals including a list of at least 160 toxic
chemicals to which the veterans were apparently regularly exposed, many
simultaneously, many since banned, including exposures in small,
enclosed, underground bunkers, and exposures in other places. Despite
the attempts in the report and the proceedings of the Committees to
ignore the effects of widespread regular exposures to a wide range of
toxic/neurotoxic chemicals for reasons which
are incorrect as addressed in our research papers and elsewhere, based
on much recent peer-reviewed papers and books, it seems obvious that the
common denominator behind these alarmingly high rates of death based
only on what is stated as the cause of death in the Certificate of
Death, rather than the true cause of death, is due to wide,
regular exposures to a diverse range of often simultaneous exposures to
toxic/neurotoxic chemicals, most untested,
without any precautions whatever, many since banned world-wide, with no
testing whatever of the increased synergistic effects of simultaneous
exposures. The
http://www.deh.gov.au/settlements/chemicals/international/pop.html That
is how the families of American veterans of Gulf War 1, enraged by the
unfounded, deliberate denial mode of Congress, doctors, scientists,
politicians, psychiatrists and departmental bureaucrats achieved success
with the passage of beneficial bills. Canadian veterans of the Korean
and Bosnian wars and their families are attempting to do likewise and,
together with families of so many Canadian civilians debilitated from
such exposures they have already tabled bills. British and Americans are
also attempting to do so. Yours
very sincerely, Allan Limburg. |