Calls on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to implement recommendations of Lloyd Report

 



The gauntlet laid down for Gordon Brown:

Some 250,000 of the returning allied forces from the first Gulf War in 1991 (15 per cent) went down with illness that they insist was related to their service in that war. Of these, 10,000 are already dead.

Successive governments over the years have refused to recognise the existence of a single condition called Gulf War Syndrome and so the impasse continues.

On 14 June 2004 it was announced that there was to be a Public Inquiry into the illnesses suffered by veterans returning home from the first Gulf War.

This public inquiry was chaired by The Rt Hon The Lord Lloyd Of Berwick and on 17 November 2004, the inquiry published its report -The Lloyd Report on Gulf War Illnesses, commonly referred to now as The Lloyd Report.


The following are the 3 R's of The Lloyd Report that Gordon Brown needs to accept:

1. REALISATION -  realisation it IS Gulf War Syndrome

Paragraph 283 of the Lloyd Report:

283. It seems to us that with the termination of any legal proceedings against the MOD, and with the results of the three epidemiological surveys to hand, now is the time to reach agreement with the veterans. This was the strong thrust of Lord Craig’s evidence. The MOD could initiate the process by taking the following steps:-
(1) The MOD should acknowledge publicly that the veterans who have made
claims (other than the 272 who have had their claims rejected) are indeed
suffering injury or disease as a result of their service in the Gulf.
(2) Since the name of the injury or disease is only a label for wrapping the
symptoms from which the veterans are undoubtedly suffering, the Ministry of
Defence should accept the name favoured by the veterans, i.e. Gulf War
Syndrome, as the most convenient label.

 
2. RECOMPENSE - recompense Veterans

Paragraph 283 of the Lloyd Report continues:

(3) The MOD should set up a fund out of which ex gratia payments should be
made on a pro-rata basis to all those who have made successful claims.
(4) The 272 Claimants who have had their claims rejected should have those
claims reviewed in the light of this report.

 

3. RECOMMENDATION - The Government needs to follow the Recommendations of The Lloyd Report

 
Paragraph 224 of the Lloyd Report:

.... the picture is already sufficiently clear to enable the MOD to acknowledge forthwith that the illnesses of the Gulf War veterans, who have had their claims accepted, are attributable to their service in the Gulf. To wait for further research into the pathology would, after fourteen years (now 16 years), be a denial of justice to the veterans.


 


Is it no wonder that Dr B has been in touch with Sir Sean Connery, Jerry Weintraub, SKG and others with A View To A ...Film!  What happened to Nixon after Watergate and All the Presidents Men?

This year we have seen pressure on the Government as follows:

  • 8 May 2007: A recent poll of 121 MPs from all parties found that more than 70 per cent thought that the Government’s actions towards ex-Service people suffering from Gulf War Illnesses had been very poor or inadequate. 

 

The Lloyd Report  résumé also nails the need as follows:
"10. We come last to the question of compensation.  This did not figure largely in the evidence of the veterans themselves.  But it figured in the evidence of Lord Craig, Major General Craig, Paul Tyler MP, Michael Mates MP, Colonel Terence English and others.  Lord Craig (Lord Craig of Radley, Marshal of the Royal Air Force,  Chief of the Defence Staff throughout the Gulf War) said that the absence of closure after so many years was now indefensible.  “A little magnanimity” was called for, and an “imaginative one-off approach”.  Mr Mates told us that what was needed was a political act of will. 

 “A minister has to say ‘this will be done’ and then it is done”. "

 


The Rt Hon Alan Johnson was appointed Secretary of State for Health in June 2007, as part of Gordon Brown's first Cabinet. Alan Johnson held a number of posts representing employees since 1976 and was elected to the National Executive Council in 1981. He became General Secretary in 1992 and Joint General Secretary of the CWU from 1995 to1997.He was a Member of the General Council TUC from 1994 to 1995 and a member of the Labour Party NEC from 1995 to 1997.

I call on Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and Secretary of State for Health, Alan Johnson, to intervene now, without further delay.

If you wish to call on Gordon Brown for "a little magnanimity", then this is how to contact Mr Brown.

Dr B
24 July 2007.