TESTIMONY OF MONTRA DENISE NICHOLS

VICE CHAIRMAN OF NATIONAL VIETNAM

AND GULF WAR VETERANS COALITION

To THE INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE

TREATMENT OF GULF WAR SYNDROME

AUGUST 14, 2000

Good Afternoon,

I am Denise Nichols, Vice Chairman of the National Vietnam and Gulf War

Veterans Coalition. I served in Operation Desert Storm as a Nurse and was

located on the border of Saudi Arab and Iraq. I have a master's degree(MSN)

and 20 plus years of nursing experience. Sadly, I have had to retire from

active nursing due to my health changes since the war.

Since 1992, I stepped forward to work on the issue of Gulf War illnesses. I

have testified, networked with other gulf war veterans stateside and

internationally, networked with doctors and researchers, and educated

congressional and senatorial staffers of the problems that gulf war veterans

are experiencing.

The testimony today is to talk about treatment options for gulf war

veterans.

But, in order to treat Gulf war veterans, one must first diagnosis them

appropriately by doing a complete and comprehensive physical examination and

order appropriate diagnostic testing directed towards neurological and

immunological abnormalities This is NOT Being- Done!

The VA and Military Comprehensive examination is faulty. I have included in

my testimony, a copy of the comprehensive examination protocol being

utilized

at the VA and military medical facilities. You will not see any of the

speciality tests that have been identified as markers of the damage we gulf

war veterans have experienced in this protocol. The deficits that we are

finding is that they are not using appropriate testing such as Spect Scans,

Viral screening, specialized MRIs, and specialized testing by means of

laboratory tests that can show the damage to the neurological and

immunological systems of the body. Tests that have been documented,

published, and testified to the Shays Government Reform Committee,

Presidential Advisory Committee, Presidential Oversight Cormmittee (Dr Ari

Vjordani), IOM, CDC, and other committees by Dr Ari Vjordani, Hailey,

Baumzweiger, Callender , Hyman.and Nicholson are not being ordered for all

veterans of the Gulf War through the VA hospitals or any other military

hospital. Dr Nicholson's tests and treatment for mycoplasma infections is

currently in research for a limited number of the gulf war veterans as is Dr

Hymen's. I am asking why at least the testing for these infections has not

been instituted for all Gulf War Veterans? Even widespread testing for

Leischmaniasis has not been performed.

These tests are the ones that are consistently showing the immunological and

neurological damage not only on the deployed ill gulf war veterans but also

the nondeployed but deployable ready veterans who are showing the same

symptomology.

How do we fix this glaring disconnect? It is CRITICAL that we do so

immediately, Because until all available laboratory and diagnostic testing

are performed for each veteran who has reported in ill, we will never get

diagnosed

We need this committee to immediately report this problem to the full chain

of command and request that all comply throughout the VA and DOD medical

system. Until this is done, we will all suffer from inadequate physical

assessment and omission of appropriate diagnostic procedures and coding

leaving the gulf war veterans in a true Catch 22 position. We can not move

to

treatment until the system is corrected throughout.

The tests that are being shown that prove the damage are avoided at all

costs

by the government. The research findings that are being found for example Dr

Hailey's findings are not being utilized or included in the workup provided

by the VA or DOD. The independent testing that has found results from Dr

Baumzweiger, Dr. Ari Vjordani, and Dr. Berg is not being funded or utilized

in anyway to assist the Gulf War veterans to even get adequate diagnosing.

SPECT Scans as documented as useful by Dr. Callender and other doctors are

not being ordered for the veterans seeking care at the VA or military

medical

facilities.

Neurological, Immunological, viral testing, urine testing (Dr Hymen),

mycoplasma testing are all being avoided. Is this medical malpractice?

Omission of appropriate diagnosing and care and ignorance of published

midical testing could bery definaitely be considered malpractice.

In Feb 1999, at the CDC conference on Gulf War syndrome, Dr Bill Baumzweiger

was asked by the Georgia veterans to examine a veteran who had been special

forces and led the way into Iraq. Dr Bill Braumzweiger agreed to perform a

physical assessment of the person in his hotelroom. What I observed then and

numerous times before and after that session, was no hocus pocus it was a

detailed history taking and a detailed physical assessment with particular

emphasis on the neurological system. This veteran like so many of the tens

of

thousands of veterans showed clear and unmistakable neurological damage.

When

the assessment was completed, I asked the veteran if he had gone through the

VA system to get help. He replied yes to three different VAs with three

different neurologists but NONE of them had done such a detailed and

complete

physical assessment.

I myself can validate that this in fact is true. I have tried through the VA

to receive diagnosis and care and what occurs is a very minimal physical

assessment and no referral to specialist in the fields of neurology,

immunology, infectious disease, rheumatology, etc. I have had to send my

blood off to speciality labs throughout the country to get answers. I have

had to go independently to get a Spec Scan. All of these have shown definite

physical abnormalities.

I have those reports with me today for each of you to review. These tests

results show

simultaneous immune suppression and autoimmunity not characteristic of most

diseases studied in medicine. These findings were originally theorized and

found by Dr Bill Baumzweiger and validated by Dr Hailey's team in

Dallas,Texas where a full medical university has been activated to get to

the

true diagnosis of gulf war syndrome. The SPEC Scan demonstrates the damage

that is consistently being found on these veterans that shows immunologicaly

caused coagulation perfusion problems. The Specialized MRI MRS being done by

Dr Hailey and Fleckenstein lends even more documented data to the brain stem

damage that we gulf war veterans have sustained. Unfortunately, I have not

been able to obtain that study yet.

I have taken these same results in to the VA Primary Doctor that I have and

that Doctor refused to study them or to get in contact with the Drs or the

lab research specialists that provided these tests even when given the names

and phone numbers and directly asked to contact them and discuss the

findings

in order to better provide care not only to myself but thousands of other

gulf war veterans who are suffering. This VA doctor without even studying

the

tests results said: Oh you can get SPURULOUS Lab Results. The VA Doctor

instead ask me if I would like a referral for a psychiatric consult but no

referral to neurology or immunology.

I have physical medical damage to my body and this is what an educated

injured retired gulf war veteran medical professional gets as far as

diagnosis and treatment?

This is the evidence of the nonwritten VA policy to do nothing, to not

pursue

independent medical assessment ideas and thoughts, to not find or even

consider looking for answers to the diagnostic needs of gulf war veterans.

It is outright medical malfesance to allow at least 220.000 veterans to walk

around begging for help with this extensive of neurological immunological

damage. How would you like to live with the effects of this damage?

Overwhelming debilitating fatigue, memory problems so bad that one of my

veterans couldn't even remember his wife of 20 years name, memory and visual

problems that force veterans to not be able to drive or participate in

normal

life functions, decreasing mental intellectual abilities, irritability and

lack of understanding from family, other friends, or health professionals,

and absolutely no support mechanisms in place!

This is criminal neglect when testing, appropriate diagnostic procedures and

physical assessment, and treatment could effectively be saving lives and

improving their functional abilities. So help us now to make a huge change

in

the system and become proactive with us in calling for these appropriate

actions with funding to be made available immediately not in ten more years.

Make these tests and diagnostic realities commonplace in every VA and

military facility for every gulf war veteran. We can do

this with this IOM's committee's report. Shorten your deliberations and

study

techniques and cut the bureaucratic government foot dragging denial

approach.

Rise up, to the moral and ethical duties and DO IT NOW.

We also need to consider the veterans who were nondeployed to theater but

deploy ready who are ill that Dr Baumzweiger and other doctors have

evaluated and performed diagnostic testing that show they too have physical

damage. We need to examine those who have received the anthrax vaccine or

other vaccines and reported reactions and ill health conseaquences. Every

committee we have had involved pointedly avoids considering a vaccination

related problem. WE urgently need this put on to the list as a number one

priority in order to STOP more troops from becoming ill.

We also need to agressively get answers to the problem of transmitability to

family

and close friends... it is absolutely outrageous that the goverment has not

approached this as the number one health problem since the war. Also we need

to address and find answers to the question that the gulf war veterans both

male and femail are experiencing sexual functional abilities disruption.

These are critical issues! It is a wonder that more violence has not

occurred

with this group of veterans that have been so poorly treated over the last

ten years. We are not study guinea pigs we are real live people that put our

lives on the line for our country.

It is not right that our family members that have become ill who did not

sign

that same contract as we did are not being more directly assisted.

Those of us who are ill consider the number one priority to be finding

appropriate testing (diagnosing) and treatment to correct these problems. WE

are the ones that have taken a proactive stance in order to teach you the

lessons learned. It is not the DOD or VA that is leading. We have done this

by paying out of our own pockets to get these tests. The costs for tests may

run to an estimated 5,000-10,000 dollars for each veteran. But this sure

appears to be much cheaper than the millions of dollars spent on research

funded by the government designed in the wrong direction, designed to find

no

association or help, and designed to protect the status quo.

While this delay continues, more veterans are becoming more severely

disabled, loosing jobs and family, filing for bankruptcy, filing for

disability, and yes Dying. We received news the other day that veterans who

served in Kosovo and Bosnia will be studied for

20 years for changes in their health. Is this any different than the Tuskgee

Syphilus study that our nation has finally acknowledged? What are the other

costs to name a few: loss of fully functional individuals that could be

producing economic income instead of being a debt burden, loss of confidence

and trust in the Government we believed and served, and loss of personnel

for

recruitment and retention for our government's military services. The

choices

now seem to be squarely in the face of the IOM to set the government

straight

and to correct the errors of the past. We hope you stand up and start

issuing

immediate reports to the chain of command that brought us all here today in

order that this deplorable situation can immediately be rectified.

Thank you and I sincerely hope that each of you on the committee have

questions for me and others today, so that we can have a true open exchange

of information and scientific inquiry today and make that huge turn that is

so desperately needed