GW#1 lawsuit: VA can be sued for failure to diagnose illness / New
PCR test that detects Leishmania

"This is a huge case," said Joyce Riley, spokeswoman for the American
Gulf War Veterans Association in Versailles, Mo. "This gives a lot of
veterans a lot of hope."

...U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled the federal government and the
Department of Veterans Affairs can be sued for alleged failure to
diagnose Brown's illness...leishmaniasis...

...leishmaniasis if often difficult to diagnose and could be an
underlying factor in half or more of the thousands of cases of
veterans commonly referred to as suffering from "Gulf War syndrome."

...Late last month, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in
Cincinnati partially overturned O'Meara's decision, saying the
government is not liable for injuries suffered while Brown was on
active duty but it can be sued for what happened once he returned to
Michigan. The government may appeal, officials said. ...

"They should not be allowed to just use us up and throw us away,"
said Brown, now alone and raising two disabled children, ages 9 and
10, on his disability income. "Somebody has got to be
accountable." ...

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MYCOPLASMA REGISTRY REPORTS
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Is family a Gulf War casualty?
Ruling lets ill widower propel lawsuit
Paul Egan / The Detroit News
DetNews.com - Detroit,MI,USA - August 7, 2006
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
AID=/20060807/LIFESTYLE03/608070331/1003/METRO

SWARTZ CREEK -- Nobody can say U.S. Army veteran Arvid Brown's Gulf
War illness is all in his head.

Brown's late wife, Janyce, caught leishmaniasis -- a sometimes deadly
parasitic disease borne by sand flies that can attack the body's
cells and internal organs -- a malady he brought home from Operation
Desert Storm. So did the Swartz Creek couple's two young children.

Now, the U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled the federal government and
the Department of Veterans Affairs can be sued for alleged failure to
diagnose Brown's illness and for any injuries he and his family
suffered.

Veterans' groups are hailing the decision as a victory for families
of tens of thousands of veterans of not only the first Gulf War, in
which Brown served, but subsequent Mideast conflicts.

"This is a huge case," said Joyce Riley, spokeswoman for the American
Gulf War Veterans Association in Versailles, Mo. "This gives a lot of
veterans a lot of hope."

When Brown, now 48, returned from the Gulf War in 1991, he couldn't
understand why his once-vigorous health was deteriorating. His head,
muscles and bones ached, his strength was sapped; he was constantly
exhausted but could not sleep.

Doctors with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs could not
pinpoint an ailment. They denied him disability benefits in 1995, and
Brown said they prescribed painkillers and mood-altering drugs that
made things worse.

It was Brown's wife, Janyce, who had the research skills and
persistence eventually to find a doctor who in 1998 diagnosed Brown
with leishmaniasis.

By then, Janyce, too, had contracted the disease and both the
couple's children had been born with it and other ailments, according
to medical reports filed in the case from Dr. Gregory Forstall, then-
director of infectious diseases at McLaren Regional Medical Center in
Flint, now in private practice.

The government has not disputed the medical reports.

Janyce Brown developed a series of ailments and last year died at age
43 of a rare and inoperable form of liver cancer. Though no definite
link was established between her leishmaniasis and other diseases,
Arvid Brown said his wife was healthy before they met.

Janyce Brown in 2004 brought a $125 million lawsuit against the
government, but a federal judge in Detroit ruled the family couldn't
sue for injuries a soldier suffered while on active duty.

U.S. District Judge John Corbett O'Meara's decision was based on the
Feres doctrine, after the soldier involved in a precedent-setting
1950 U.S. Supreme Court decision. Army Lt. Rudolph J. Feres died in a
1947 fire caused by a defective heater in a military barracks at Pine
Camp, N.Y. The court ruled his widow could not sue because Feres was
on active duty.

Late last month, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati
partially overturned O'Meara's decision, saying the government is not
liable for injuries suffered while Brown was on active duty but it
can be sued for what happened once he returned to Michigan. The
government may appeal, officials said.

"They should not be allowed to just use us up and throw us away,"
said Brown, now alone and raising two disabled children, ages 9 and
10, on his disability income. "Somebody has got to be accountable."

Many look toward lawsuit

Mark Zeller, 42, a Gulf War veteran in Dahlonega, Ga., said he is
about to bring a lawsuit against the government and believes the
decision in Brown's case will strengthen his legal position.

"I can't do anything and I have to sleep all the time," said Zeller,
who has been diagnosed by Veterans Affairs doctors with chronic
fatigue syndrome but says his wife and five children also constantly
suffer from flulike symptoms.

The Fe res doctrine "safeguards the government, but what safeguard do
we have?" asked Zeller.

Leishmaniasis is little-known in North America but common in
southwest Asia and many other parts of the world. According to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 12 million
people in the tropics and subtropics have the disease. One form
produces skin lesions. The more severe and deadly form, which Brown
has, attacks blood cells and the body's internal organs. Like
malaria, it is a chronic disease that can be controlled but not cured.

Dr. Katherine Murray Leisure is a former Department of Veterans
Affairs doctor now in private practice in Lebanon, Pa., specializing
in infectious diseases. She said leishmaniasis if often difficult to
diagnose and could be an underlying factor in half or more of the
thousands of cases of veterans commonly referred to as suffering
from "Gulf War syndrome."

Bedouins and others who live in the desert clothe their entire bodies
for good reasons, Murray Leisure said. But, when U.S. forces go to
the desert to fight, "we try to pretend we're at the Jersey shore."

Situation likened to Titanic

Terry Jemison, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Veterans
Affairs, said he could not comment on the Brown case because of the
ongoing court case. But he said the department is aggressively
researching the ailments of Gulf War veterans and plans to spend $15
million a year on research for the next five years.

No reliable numbers are available on how many family members believe
they have been infected. But Riley, a registered nurse and former
U.S. Air Force captain, said she believes tens of thousands of
veterans' relatives have suffered.

"I think this is the Titanic," said Robert P. Walsh, Brown's Battle
Creek attorney. "All these guys saw was the tip of the iceberg."

Arvid Brown, who grew up in southwest Detroit, spent about six months
overseas during Desert Storm, helping to build, maintain and operate
a prisoner of war camp near Hafr Al-Batin in northeastern Saudi
Arabia, about 25 miles from the Iraqi border.

Brown remembers the sand flies, the camel spiders and the bug
repellent. He remembers meeting soldiers in the desert who wore dogs'
flea collars around their necks, wrists and ankles and thinking how
unhealthy that seemed.

The muscle aches, bone pains, headaches and rashes began while he was
in Saudi Arabia, but "it was easy to attribute it to heat and
everything I was doing," Brown recalled.

Long-delayed diagnosis

Solving the mystery would take seven years as Brown's condition
worsened through periods of disorientation, blackouts, extreme light
sensitivity and almost unbearable pain. By 1998, when he was finally
diagnosed, Brown had lost his job, been forced to give up driving and
said he awoke early most mornings from a fitful sleep, vomiting blood.

Veterans Affairs doctors, who according to court records examined
Brown on Sept. 13, 1994, but did not detect the disease, said he was
suffering anxiety attacks and prescribed pills, Brown said. The
department did not grant him benefits until 1998 and only this year
recognized his diagnosis of leishmaniasis.

Jemison, the VA spokesman, said the department "remains committed to
ensuring all veterans receive high-quality care."

In its answer to the lawsuit, the VA denied failing to diagnose Brown
and denied committing malpractice in the medical care it gave Brown.

Somehow, amid the pain and fatigue, Brown, who was divorced from his
first wife soon after returning from the Gulf, was able to meet and
marry the woman he credits with saving his life.

Brown wed Janyce Surface in September 1994 as his health continued to
spiral downward. He lost his job and they struggled to pay bills.
Children arrived: Asa, now 10, in 1995, and his sister, Helen, now 9,
in 1997. Both were born with severe handicaps and later tested
positive for leishmaniasis. Helen is still unable to speak.

It was Janyce Brown who got her husband an appointment with Forstall,
who diagnosed Arvid Brown with leishmaniasis in October 1998.
Chemotherapy put the disease into remission, though Brown continues
to struggle with his health today.

By 2000, Janyce Brown and both children had also tested positive for
leishmaniasis. As Janyce struggled to care for her husband and look
after two young children with cerebral palsy, her own health rapidly
deteriorated. She died at home of cancer.

"She was an extremely intelligent individual, someone with the will
and the nerves of steel and the tenaciousness of the meanest bulldog
you had ever come across," Brown said.

"She was fighting for her husband, the man she loved … and her
children … She will always be my biggest hero."

You can reach Paul Egan at (313) 222-2069 or pegan@detnews.com.

_____________________________________

EXCERTS FROM:

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MYCOPLASMA REGISTRY
for gulf war syndrome & chronic fatigue syndrome
FREE Brochure: "HOW TO GET AN ACCURATE
POLYMERASE CHAIN REACTION (PCR) BLOOD TEST
for Mycoplasmal and Other Infections
with International List of Laboratories"
© April 2006 Sean Dudley & Leslee Dudley
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PERSIAN GULF WAR VETERANS
The Gulf War Mycoplasma Study showed that nearly all the Gulf War
veterans who tested positive for mycoplasma infections were positive
for Mycoplasma fermentans. Mycoplasma genitalium was also found and
a very small percentage tested positive for Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Gulf War veterans also test positive for the infectious disease
Viscerotropic Leishmaniasis from desert sand flies and
other oligoparasitic diseases. (*New PCR test for Leishmania,
see Diagnostic Leishmania Laboratory listed below.)

We recommend that all Gulf War veterans also get tested for:
uranium poisoning from exposure to depleted uranium,
antibodies to experimental vaccine adjuvants such as squalene, and
if there has been any exposure to organophosphate pesticides or
sarin nerve gas get tested for the blood enzyme, paraoxonase.

In addition, Veterans have experience long term side effects
from prescription drugs such as: pyridostigmine bromide,
given to troops to protect against nerve gas,
and the antimalarial drug Lariam (mefloquine).

 NEW PCR TEST THAT DETECTS LEISHMANIA
Leishmania Diagnostic Laboratory
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR)
Department of Entomology
503 Robert Grant Ave.
Silver Spring, Maryland 20910-7500
Tel.: Dr. Pete Weina: 301.319.7155/9956 or DSN 285.7155/9956
(WRAIR mails diagnostic kits with instructions upon request,
limited to CONUS facilities and Landstuhl for selected cases.)
For more information:
Leishmania Treatment Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
LTC Glenn Wortmann, COL Naomi Aronson, COL Charles Oster
Commercial: 202.782.1663/8695/8691DSN: 662.663/8695/8691
Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR)
Tel.: 301.319.0056 DSN 285.9956DoD
Deployment Health Clinical Center at Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Tel.: 866.559.1627 (USA) European Toll-Free Tell: 0800.8666.8666
Website: URL: http://www.pdhealth.mil/
Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Leishmaniasis web page
at: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/leishmania/default/htm

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