A sister on a `truth' mission; Chemical exposure link to Gulf war veteran's disease studied

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A sister on a `truth' mission; Chemical exposure link to Gulf war veteran's

disease studied

The Washington Times

4-18-1999

By Kabbany

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Donnelly has dedicated her life to learning " the truth. "

Her mission: To find out how her brother contracted amyotrophic lateral

sclerosis at the age of 35. ALS - also known as Lou Gehrig's disease

- strikes only 1 in 500,000 men under age 40.

What makes her brother's condition mysterious is that 24 other Persian

Gulf war veterans like her brother - out of the 697,000 who served

in the assault - also suffer from the disease.

" That would suggest that these people as a group may have been exposed

to some environmental factor that may be a cause of ALS, " said

W. Haley, an epidemiologist at the four-time Nobel prize-winning

Southwestern

Medical Center in Dallas.

Donnelly, now 40, spent 15 years with the U.S. Air Force

as an F-16 fighter pilot and participated in 44 bombing missions in

the Gulf war. He is now a quadriplegic confined to a wheelchair; he

cannot speak, but can type using an electronic mouse attached to the

only part of his body he can move - his left thumb.

" I do not want to die a bitter man. I do not want to die at all.

But if I must, I want truth to be my companion on that journey, not

regret, " Mr. Donnelly writes in " Falcon's Cry - A Desert Storm Memoir, "

co-authored by his sister.

Mrs. Donnelly believes her brother fell victim to ALS because of

his exposure to nerve gas during the war - mixed with an exposure

to the insecticide malathion three years later. She wants the U.S.

military to admit some Gulf war veterans have ALS because of double

exposures.

" I am driven to keep fighting, " said Mrs. Donnelly, 44. " There are

times I've thought of stopping [but then] I hear something new.

" I wish I didn't know what I know, but now I feel it would be wrong

of me to stop. "

In a document Mrs. Donnelly found under the Defense Department's

own " GulfLink " Web site under the section " Declassified documents, "

commanders were warned that " the use of unapproved insecticides

in and around troop living areas is strongly discouraged " because

mixed with insecticides " soldiers . . . may die or put themselves

at increased risk of severe injury or death after nerve agent exposure. "

The document was dated Feb. 21, 1991, and declassified in September

1996, according to the Web site, although Austin Camacho, Defense

Department spokesman for Gulf war illnesses, said he didn't think

it was ever classified.

He said soldiers were " aware of that risk, " but he didn't know if

" every service member was told. "

Mrs. Donnelly said her brother was never told of the danger of double

exposure and could have avoided the malathion spray had he known he

was at risk. But he did know that he had flown through chemical fallout

after bombing weapons plants in Iraq.

While Dr. Haley stressed that the association between the Gulf war

and ALS has not yet been made, he said if the type of brain degeneration

in the 25 cases is different from cases of sufferers not in the Gulf

war, that could illustrate a connection.

" No one has ever shown that pesticides produce just that kind of nerve

degeneration, but they haven't shown it doesn't either, " he said.

Dr. Haley and his colleagues began to take notice of the ALS veterans

after " a bunch of Gulf war [veterans] and their families called us

up and asked if we had seen all the cases. "

Dr. Haley's research is funded by the (Ross) Perot Foundation, but

the federal government has also spent more than $130 million on 140

projects since 1994, looking into why young, healthy veterans are

coming down with such medical complications as ALS, Veterans Affairs

spokesman Terry Jemison said.

" I don't know if we will ever find out the truth, " said Donnelly.

" I am committed to making sure my brother doesn't die for nothing. "