Gulf War Syndrome: The French troops aren't getting it

Gulf War Syndrome: The French troops aren't getting it
Joe Vialls
September 1996

Carine, Australia (Jan. 6, 1996). During late 1995, devastating new evidence on Gulf War Syndrome was released providing strong scientific support for those who have long suspected the Gulf veterans are suffering short and long term effects of unproven anti-bacteriological warfare inoculations and anti-nerve gas tablets, forcibly administered by US Army doctors in Saudi Arabia.

With thousands of US veterans suffering from Gulf War Syndrome, it came as no surprise to learn in October that several hundred British veterans were suffering in the same way, with three to five cases being reported every week. Like their US counterparts, most were puzzled by the origins of the disease, which they initially attributed to exposure to oil-laden smoke in Kuwait, toxic dust from depleted uranium rounds fired by US weapons, and possible contamination from expended Iraqi chemical shells in the area, fired before the Gulf War commenced.

In a startling break with tradition, one British military doctor stated that in her view, 99% of the problems could be sourced back to the anti-bacteriological tablets forcibly administered to military personnel in the Gulf region at that time. In an October 1995 broadcast of the ITN TV World News from London, she further explained that all British military personnel had been provided with the same untested and unproven drugs as the Americans, from the US medical sources. To reinforce the point she was making, the doctor explained that the number of British personnel suffering symptoms correlated exactly on a per capita basis with the Americans. It was a controversial claim, but apparently lacking in substance.

Shattering confirmation of her claim came eleven hours later when Australian Channel 10 television carried exactly the same story at 5 p.m., but with an extra piece tagged onto the end. The extra piece claimed that French military personnel in the region, numbering about the same as the British contingent, had been prevented from taking the "cocktails" and tablets on the direct order of the French Commander-in-Chief. The story continued that since the end of the Gulf War, not a single member of the French military has suffered from Gulf War Syndrome or reported any of its known symptoms. By 6 p.m. the same night, when the other Australian television networks ran their news broadcasts, the awesome story with its stunning implications had vanished from sight and was not run by any other Australian TV network. Nor was it reported in the Australian newspapers.

For any scientist or veteran, the fact that the French should be completely clear of Gulf War Syndrome while the Americans and British during 1991, has huge and potentially horrifying implications. After all, the French ate the same food, drank the same water, breathed the same air and trudged through hundreds of miles of the same desert. They also fired much the same weapons at much the same targets. So what were the additional environmental variables which made the French unique in their ability to completely withstand the deadly Gulf War Syndrome? The truth is there were none at all, save for the experimental American "cocktail" inoculations and tablets.

To attempt to confirm this very short-lived story, the author contacted the French Military Attaché in Australia and inquired if it was correct that the French Commander-in-Chief forbade his own personnel the untested substances. The Military Attaché was happy to confirm this, and further confirmed that not one French soldier or airman has suffered since the end of the Gulf War. It seemed to be a subject of which he was very proud, and rightly so. Perhaps it is time for the US and British veterans to confirm the same points with their local French consulates, before taking a very hefty legal swing at their own governments.

Reprinted with permission from the January 1996 edition of Blazing Tattles, P.O. Box 1073, Half Moon Bay, CA 94019.