VA revamps Gulf War Illness advisory committee

• The VA added two medical professors and two Gulf War vets to a closely-watched advisory committee.
• The committee's work could influence the treatment and benefits of 250,000 Gulf War veterans.
• The VA launched a study to examine possible ties between wartime chemical exposure and brain cancer.

Veterans' advocates were encouraged Friday by the addition of four new members to the Department of Veterans Affairs' Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses.

The closely watched committee proposes and reviews research on veteran health issues associated with the first Gulf War. The committee's recommendations are expected to set the course for treatment and compensation for as many as 250,000 troops who served in the war in Kuwait and Iraq in 1990 and 1991.

The new appointees: Stephen L. Hauser, chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco; Ronnie D. Horner, professor of epidemiology at the University of South Carolina; Frances E. Perez-Wilhite, a former Army officer who served during the Gulf War; and Scott S. Young, a former Navy flight surgeon who served during the war and now heads Kaiser Permanente's Care Management Institute.

The committee's former longtime chairman, Phoenix resident and Vietnam War veteran James H. Binns, and other members were vocal in their concern last year that VA administrators were replacing members in an effort to steer the panel away from science.

U.S. House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., and four other members of Miller's panel, including Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Ariz., urged VA Secretary Bob McDonald to retain Binns and other outgoing Gulf War committee members for at least a year.

McDonald moved forward with efforts to rotate some members anyway.

Binns gave positive reviews to VA's new appointees, who were announced Thursday.

"I would like to believe that this is because they now want to do the right thing. Hopefully, other steps will follow that show this is the case. But I don't think this would be happening if we weren't pushing them and if it weren't in the public eye," Binns said.

Established science shows that the chronic multi-symptom illness is tied to chemical exposure during the war, Binns said. VA administrators initially intended fill the positions with replacements who said Gulf War Illness was rooted in mental illness, Binns said.

Phoenix Gulf War veteran and former Navy corpsman Matthew Key, 46, said he was particularly pleased that the VA has now put Gulf War vets on the panel.

"That's fantastic having brothers on our side who know, because I know what happened and what we were exposed to," he said.

The new members will bring a fresh perspective to the committee, McDonald said. "We will continue to invest in research to understand and treat Gulf War Veterans' illnesses," he said in a written statement.

The VA also announced that it will begin to examine brain cancer among Gulf War veterans because of concerns that troops were exposed to chemical nerve agents during the war.