British soldier wins Gulf War Syndrome case

LONDON, May 5 (Reuters) - A British soldier suffering from a brittle bone disease won a landmark Gulf War Syndrome case when a tribunal ruled that a cocktail of drugs given to him in 1991 should be blamed for his illness.

Alex Izett was never deployed in the Gulf, but his symptoms, including fatigue and digestive and psychological problems, were identical to those of some veterans of the war in which a U.S.-led coalition drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

The ruling is seen as the first recognition of the syndrome which the Britain's Ministry of Defence says does not exist. The ministry said on Monday it had lost the case on legal, not medical, grounds but it had no plans to appeal.

The war pensions tribunal ruled in December that Royal Engineer Izett's osteoporosis and other symptoms were caused by the injections, a cocktail of chemical antidotes given to soldiers before the Gulf War.

"The tribunal finds that the appellant was vaccinated with a concoction of drugs prior to planned deployment in the Gulf War. The concoction of drugs caused osteoporosis" said the ruling, the publication of which was delayed until after the latest war in Iraq.

Neither the United States nor Britain accept that a direct link has been established between the war and the syndrome, even though both countries have spent hundreds of millions of dollars researching possible causes.

The controversial illness under scrutiny in the medical community has been linked to stress, smoke from oil-burning wells, depleted uranium and other causes. It has also been blamed on the inoculations.

"There is no medical evidence whatsoever to support the fact that injections harmed some people," Junior Defence Minister Lewis Moonie told BBC Radio.

"The tribunal accepted that we could not prove that the ill-health was not due to the injections... We can only challenge the decision if we have a point of law on which to do so, but there is no point of law in which to do so," he said.

Izett, who twice attempted suicide, told the BBC his victory should be seen as a triumph for suffering veterans.

"I've suffered the exact same symptoms as people who actually served in the Gulf that also had the inoculations... I think this ruling is a great step forward for other veterans," he said.

Articles are posted here as a service, to keep subscribers abreast of News and Views, Pro or Con on issues of interest to it's readers
and are reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law."