U.S. expands health screening of returning troops

WASHINGTON, April 29 (Reuters) - U.S. troops serving in the Iraq war will be required to give a blood sample and complete a detailed medical questionnaire after coming home, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, in an acknowledgment that too little was done after the 1991 Gulf War to track the health of veterans.

Many veterans of the 1991 war suffered a variety of illnesses after returning home that have been labeled Gulf War Syndrome, with experts inside and outside the U.S. government struggling to produce an explanation. Some theories include exposure to chemical agents, tropical infections or stress.

Critics have argued that the lack of detailed medical information about the veterans contributed to the difficulty of solving the mystery.

"There were some things that were not done in 1991 that made it much more difficult to determine what an individual might or might not have been exposed to," said Barbara Goodno, an official with the Defense Department's Deployment Health Support Directorate.

"It's a fair assessment to say that when it comes to individual health records, that often there was important information that was missing. And that's one of the reasons that there has been a focus on improving medical record-keeping," Goodno added.

Faced with concern in Congress and among veterans' groups, the Pentagon said it was taking steps to improve its process for assessing the health of troops after their deployment.

Troops returning from the war will be required to give blood samples within 30 days of leaving the Gulf region, officials said. These can be compared to blood samples given by the troops before the war, they added.

Returning troops will meet with health care providers -- although not necessarily doctors -- and will complete an expanded, four-page questionnaire detailing any symptoms experienced during their deployment to the Gulf region, officials said.

It asks about possible exposure to chemical or biological weapons, pesticides, smoke, radiation, lasers, depleted uranium and other substances, as well as any nightmares or symptoms of depression. It also asks where troops served during the war.

A Pentagon statement said the changes will "better assist medical personnel in evaluating the health of returning service members."

James Turner, a Defense Department spokesman, said Pentagon officials "want to have a much better picture of what might have happened, health-wise" to troops in this war than in the 1991 war.

"We saw illness in veterans when they came back from the war. After all the research, we still today haven't seen any one cause or series of causes," Turner said. "It's not a single syndrome. We've seen illnesses, and our first priority is to treat those illnesses. And then we've gone out and learned some lessons, one of which is keeping better records."

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