Returning UK forces to face medical screenings

All of the UK's 45,000 military personnel will face medical screenings after returning from the Gulf, the government has announced today.

Others, such as civilians contracted by the MoD, aid workers, and journalists who were embedded with British troops during the Iraq war, will also be subjected to medical checks on physical and psychological health.

Veterans' Minister Lewis Moonie said: "We take the health of our people extremely seriously and, as I indicated to the House on Commons on 14 April, we are putting in place a range of measures to monitor the health of personnel returning from the Gulf and investigate any concerns quickly."

All regular and reservist service personnel and MoD civilians will be able to attend a medical assessment programme run by the MoD at St Thomas's Hospital in London on referral by their doctor.

The programme is a specialist unit with expertise in Gulf health issues, and will be available to attached contractors, aid workers and embedded journalists.

Tests will focus on detecting the presence of radiation poisoning as a result of the use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions. Solid uranium is used as an armour-piercing element primarily to tip tank shells and explosive rounds fired by A-10 anti-tank aircraft.

The US and UK forces have admitted to using DU in the first Iraq war in 1991, and in subsequent interventions in Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia.

The WHO says that DU munitions carry both chemical and radiological toxicity, which particularly affects the kidneys and the lungs. Health teams have found that inhaled uranium particles tend to be retained in the lung and may lead to irradiation damage of the lung and even lung cancer.

According to the WHO, poisoning can also occur through ingesting polluted drinking water or from shrapnel injuries.

In 2000 – nine years after the Gulf War – the WHO said that Iraq had a total of 195,374 new cases of cancer (except skin) in both sexes, and 126,677 deaths. Lung cancer was the most common cancer for men and similarly for women breast cancer was the most common.

In May 2000, Iraq's UN representative told a conference on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons that 300 tonnes of DU weapons used in 1991 "had polluted Iraq’s environment and increased the registered cases of cancer, especially among children". He went on to describe DU as a "weapon of mass destruction".

Approximately 31,000 rounds of DU ammunition was fired by US A-10 aircraft in Kosovo.

The health situation in southern Iraq, where a significant portion of the UK's commitment is stationed, has deteriorated over the past few days.

The WHO in Basra has reported a "significant increase" in the number of cases of diarrhoeal diseases, gastroenteritis and dehydration. Seven cases of clinically confirmed cholera have also been reported, mainly among children aged between 13 months and 4 years old.

Doctors at a Basra hospital said there are currently more than 30 admissions per day for diarrhoeal disease.

(GMcG)