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Gulf War Illnesses

Answer

The information requested falls within the responsibilities of the Medical Research Council. Professor Blakemore, the chief executive of the MRC, has written to me regarding this matter. An extract from his letter is given below. "““In 2003, the MRC, through our Military Health Research Advisory Group (MHRAG), conducted a comprehensive review of relevant research into Gulf Veterans’ illness. As Lord Sainsbury outlined in a written answer to the Countess of Mar on 30 October 2006, the review involved a one-day closed scientific meeting between the MHRAG and a number of scientists from the UK and overseas. This was followed on the next day by a separate private meeting of the MHRAG to appraise the MRC of scientific progress, of the potential for gaining further knowledge and of research needs, and of what the likely medical issues might be. As reported by Lord Sainsbury, in a written answer to a question from Lord Morris of Manchester, we estimated the cost of the review to be between £20,000 and £25,000. This estimate related to the closed scientific meeting, the MHRAG meeting the following day, and the publication of the report.""We of course publish the memberships of our Council and standing advisory Boards/Committees; and the membership of the MHRAG is recorded in the published review. However, it is not the MRC's practice to release into the public domain the names of individuals who either attended, or who may, or may not, have been considered as participants, in closed ad-hoc scientific meetings. If we felt there was a particular reason to make names public, we would make that clear in the letters of invitation. In the case of this scientific meeting, we did not do that. For what I hope are obvious reasons, we would never make public the names of individuals whom we had considered inviting to join a particular committee or meeting, but whom we subsequently decided not to invite. I am therefore not in a position to respond to the Countess of Mar's second question””."

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

111; 687 c78-9WA

Session

2006-07

Related items

Gulf War Illnesses
Monday, 16 October 2006
Written questions
House of Lords

Subjects

Expenditure Iraq-Kuwait conflict Research Reviews Gulf War syndrome Medical Research Council Veterans

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk