the United States Senate

“ During this session of Congress, the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs will be reviewing the Export Administration Act, which is due for reauthorization. I have assured the veterans, their families, and the people of the United States that the policy under which these licenses were granted will be examined and strengthened. The defense of the United States should not be undermined by export policies that allow this government to assist any pariah nation, such as Iraq, in the furtherance of nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons programs. ”

“ I am not sure the people who are the architects of the whole operation and may have underestimated the risk from biological weapons exposure and chemical exposure necessarily want to talk about it now either because it is not a very happy ending to that particular war situation. But when you see these sick veterans and their families face to face, their country has a higher obligation, than to just tidy up the record and to forget about these things. We have an obligation to find out what is going on here and to help these people who desperately need our help. ”

“ You do not just give a veteran a handshake after they have given their service to the country. And if they come home and if they are sick, you respond to their needs. You go to work to try to figure out what is causing it. If they have exotic illnesses that may very well be traceable to chemical and biological exposure, then you go to work to find out how that might have happened. We should have gotten this information from the Department of Defense. ”

“ I ask that the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense immediately establish disability rating systems for stricken Gulf War veterans that are dependent on the degree of individual disability rather than using some arbitrary point system. ”

“ After receiving complaints from a number of Michigan veterans who told me they were not receiving appropriate care from Department of Veterans Affairs` hospitals, I initiated an inquiry into the nature and scope of Gulf War Syndrome. This research uncovered a great deal of evidence that U.S. forces may have been exposed to chemical and possibly biological warfare agents as a result of the bombings of 18 chemical, 12 biological, and 4 nuclear facilities within Iraq during the Persian Gulf War. ”

“ After receiving the export information from the U.S. Department of Commerce, my staff contacted the principal supplier of these materials, the American Type Culture Collection, to determine the genus, species, strain, and origins of these materials.
Records provided by the supplier show that, from at least 1985 through 1989, the period for which records were available, the United States government approved for sale to Iraq quantities of potentially lethal biological agents that could have been cultured or grown in large volume in an Iraqi biological warfare program. ”

“ While there may be some legitimate need for what are called pathogens in medical research, obviously much closer scrutiny should be exercised in approval of exports of materials of this kind to countries known or suspected of having active and aggressive biological warfare programs. Iraq has long been suspected of conducting biological warfare research in addition to its known chemical and biological warfare research programs. ”

“ We have sick veterans that are not going to survive unless we figure out what is wrong and what the right treatments are and get going on it. I strongly suspect based on common sense and logic, and on the past performance of Iraq, and with the lineup of these symptoms, that this is part of the story. ”

“ Brucella melitensis is a bacteria which can cause chronic fatigue, loss of appetite, profuse sweating when at rest - this is another common symptom - all of these the veterans will tell you they are dealing with these symptoms. Other symptoms include pain in joints and muscles, insomnia, nausea, and can result in damage to major organs.
Clostridium perfringens is a highly toxic bacteria which causes gas gangrene. The bacteria produce toxins that move along muscle bundles in the body killing cells and producing necrotic tissue that is then favorable for further growth of the bacteria itself. ”

“ There is nothing in the VA that says that if a veteran comes back with some kind of exotic illness that makes his family sick that the VA is going to step up and respond to the health needs of the family. ”

“ Maybe because at the time the policymakers in the administration thought he would use these weapons on the Iranians. Well, it looks as if they may have gotten used on our people. But that could not have happened if these items had not left our country in the first place, getting into the hands of that diabolical monster and allowing him to develop these kinds of weapons capabilities. ”

“ These kinds of exposures may begin to explain the alarming and growing evidence that the illnesses some of our gulf war veterans are experiencing appear to be moving through their families, causing health problems in their wives and in their children. Veterans have come to me in Michigan where I met with them and their family members. ”

“ Yes, many are dying. Yes, they are vomiting. Yes, they have general weakness. Yes, they are showing up with toxicity in their systems. Yes, they are sweating when they are at rest, and they have nausea and insomnia, and terrible skin inflammation. ”

“ Interestingly, many of the veterans coming back have these kinds of symptoms and the acute skin inflammation is very common. Reactivated infection usually involves the lungs, the brain, spinal membranes, heart, peritoneum, and the adrenals. ”