Obituary of Lord Lloyd of Berwick, The Times (London), 21/12/2024

Posting because of this reference to Gulf War Syndrome:

That respect led him to be appointed to positions that demanded a sensitive touch: they included chairing an inquiry into legislation against terrorism in 1996 and the inquiry into Gulf War syndrome, set up in 2004.

This was established amid concerns that 6,000 veterans who had returned years earlier from the first Gulf War were suffering from a range of severe conditions from osteoporosis, insomnia and depression to erectile dysfunction and arthritis, with no obvious cause.

The inquiry at the invitation of the Labour peer Lord Morris of Manchester was unfunded by the government and Lloyd acted without payment. His report months later was hailed by veterans and families as a “triumph of social concern over official indifference”.

He concluded that there was “every reason” to accept the existence of a Gulf War syndrome, the existence of which had been denied by the MoD.

His report accepted that the illnesses suffered by the veterans were likely to be due to a combination of causes, including multiple injections of vaccines, the use of pesticides to spray tents, low-level exposure to nerve gas and the inhalation of depleted uranium dust.

But, it added, all the scientific studies agreed that Gulf veterans were twice as likely to suffer from ill health as they would have been if deployed elsewhere and that “there is therefore every reason to call the illnesses by the label ‘Gulf War syndrome’”.

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https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituar...-sensitive-and-independent-law-lord-0l3zmb3mq

Archived:
https://archive.ph/pNd5v