The Lloyd inquiry into Gulf war illnesses has concluded that Gulf war syndrome probably does exist and that the Ministry of Defence should recognise that thousands of veterans suffered ill-health as a result of their service in the Gulf. The inquiry report said that the MOD should establish a special fund to make payments to veterans whose health has been damaged.

Ronald Maddison died after he was exposed to sarin nerve gas in tests conducted at Porton Down in Wiltshire in 1953. The Wiltshire coroner has concluded that Maddison died as the result of "the application of a nerve agent in a non-therapeutic experiment". The original, secret, inquest in 1953 found the cause of death was misadventure. Maddison's family will now seek compensation and more former servicemen plan legal action. The Crown Prosecution Service will review its decision not to take action following a four-year investigation by the Wiltshire police force.

"A substantial proportion of Gulf war veterans are ill with multisystem conditions not explained by wartime stress or psychiatric illness", according to a report (Scientific progress in understanding Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses) released by the US Department of Veterans Affairs Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses. The report finds that a growing body of research indicates that an important component of Gulf War veterans' illnesses is neurological in character, and that evidence supports a probable link between exposure to neurotoxins and the development of Gulf War veterans' illnesses. (See New Scientist 6 November 2004).

A clinical network co-ordinating centre for Cornwall and Devon and a multi-disciplinary support team for Cornwall are to be set up for people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME). This action is part of the first phase of an investment of £8.5 million across England to develop new services for these patients.

Professor Anthony Pinching, Professor of Clinical Immunology at the Peninsula Medical School, will lead the centre. Three local teams will provide specialist assessment and diagnosis, multi-disciplinary clinical management and advice to patients, carers and other clinicians.

There is an overlap between the symptoms of chronic OP poisoning and those of CFS/ME. OPIN has written to Professor Pinching about the possibility that some ME/CFS sufferers may also have been exposed to OPs.

Sheep farmers and farm workers who have retired due to ill health are needed for a new study into the effects of low-level exposure to hazardous chemicals on the farm.

A research team from University College London is to study whether long-term low-level exposure to hazardous chemicals on the farm has any adverse effects on health. The project, co-ordinated by Sarah Mackenzie Ross and funded by Defra, will focus on retired farm workers in addition to working farmers. Many other studies have failed to include retired farmers and farm staff and this may mean that the risk of developing ill health following exposure to hazardous chemicals has been underestimated.

The study will be centre on the counties of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Somerset, Hereford and Wiltshire. The researchers need to find at least 80 farming people from these areas who have worked with sheep and have a history of long-term exposure to chemicals on the farm. They will have had to retire (at any age) due to some form of physical, mental or emotional ill health. For comparison, two further groups of 80 people need to be recruited. One group will be people who have retired on ill health grounds but have a limited exposure to hazardous chemicals and the other will be farmers/farm workers who are still working. Participants will initially be contacted by telephone and asked a few questions about their work history and current health. At a later date they may be asked to take part in a clinical examination - usually in their own home - comprising memory and problem-solving ability tests. However, Defra will only provide funding for the clinical examination if enough people can be recruited to the study.

Feedback will be given to everyone who has taken part in the study and a report will be prepared for Defra. The results will be used to devise effective policies and recommendations about the use of chemicals on the farm, aimed at improving safety and working conditions.

If you have retired on ill health grounds over the last 20 years and would be willing to take part in this study, please contact Kelly Abraham or Virginia Harrison - tel 020 7679 1891 or email kelly.abraham@ucl.ac.uk or virginia.harrison@ucl.ac.uk by Dec 1, 2004.

OPIN has been invited to give evidence to the independent inquiry set up to investigate illnesses resulting from the first Gulf war. We have submitted evidence regarding the widespread use of OP pesticides. The inquiry has been set up at the request of Lord Morris of Manchester, a long-time campaigner for the rights of the disabled, and the Royal British Legion. Funding has come from an anonymous charity, and Lord Lloyd of Berwick chairs the inquiry.

OPIN has submitted two sets of documents: the first relates to the unregulated and chaotic use of pesticides using information drawn from an MOD report produced by their Organophosphate Pesticide Investigation Team (OPPIT), and the second gives details of the health effects of exposure to OPs. Without all the information and support supplied by hundreds of farmers in Britain suffering chronic exposure to OPs this submission would not have been possible. We do not say that OPs caused all the symptoms of Gulf syndrome, but we do believe that they may have contributed significantly to the illnesses experienced by the services.

A comprehensive review of research of the effects of pesticides on human health shows 'consistent links to serious illnesses such as cancer, reproductive problems and neurological diseases' and says that 'children are particularly vulnerable to pesticides'. The review is published by the Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP). Among the principal findings of the review is that occupational exposure to agricultural chemicals may be associated with adverse reproductive effects including birth defects, fetal death and intrauterine growth retardation. The review can be found at the OCFP website here.

This article contrasts the relative lack of knowledge of health effects following occupational exposure to OPs to that of the 'clinical features of organophosphate poisoning'. It describes these clinical features as having three phases: an initial cholinergic phase followed by an intermediate syndrome and finally a non-lethal delayed polyneuropathy, this last phase not requiring the prior existence of the cholinergic or intermediate phases. It cites collaboration with workers in developing countries, where there are more OP poisoning episodes, as a possible source of information for much-needed 'evidence-based guidelines for appropriate or optimal therapeutic interventions following poisoning'.

'Organophosphate toxicity and occupational exposure' Occupational Medicine 2004;54:69-75, R. Kamanyire and L. Karalliedde. View abstract on journal website

An open "scientific symposium/workshop" is held in Cardiff by the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT) to consider variability and uncertainty in toxicology. COT has established a Working Group (see here for more information) to "develop a more systematic and transparent approach to risk assessment". The agenda of the meeting is here.

The Chief Veterinary Officer and representatives of the VPC, VMD and the MRC meet parliamentarians from the All Party OP Group to discuss OP research and other issues. Read the minutes of the meeting.

At a separate briefing for the media the main points as reported in Farmers Guardian (30 January 2004) are:

• some of the work in the £1.4m government-funded programme, which includes research into the health effects of low-level exposure, might not be complete until 2005/6 because of delays introduced by the foot-and mouth outbreak;
• claims by the All Party Group on OPs that DEFRA ignores the precautionary principle by allowing OP sheepdips to be sold while knowledge about low-level exposure was incomplete were denied;
• research on alternatives to chemical methods to control scab, such as vaccines, was unlikely to produce a replacement for OPs for 'at least five years';
• DEFRA has "no indication as to how widespread OP poisoning is".

OPIN has written to 31 medical schools in the UK to ask about their policy on training medical students in toxicology. In 1992 a survey of 24 medical schools found that the amount of time devoted to teaching toxicology in a course for new medical students ranged between one and ten hours, and two of the schools provided no training at all. More...