---

Ministry of Defence

Answer

Dr. Iddon: To ask the Secretary of State for Defence what the rate of death of (a) UK Gulf War veterans and (b) other members of the public by motor vehicle accidents was in each year since 1992. [78604] Dr. Moonie: The mortality rates per 10,000 personnel to Gulf veterans due to motor vehicle accidents during the ten-year period 1992-2001 are given below. For comparison purposes the data for a similar sized cohort randomly sampled from United Kingdom armed forces personnel in Service on 1 January 1991 who were not deployed to the Gulf, stratified according to age, gender, Service, Officer status, regular/reservist status and a proxy marker for fitness are also given. Data from the Office for National Statistics for the general population of England and Wales with the same age and gender profile, taking into account the ageing of the Gulf cohort, is also provided. _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Year Gulf Era England and Wales 1992 3.4 1.9 1.7 1993 2.1 1.1 1.3 1994 1.5 1.9 1.2 1995 2.4 0.6 1.1 1996 3.2 1.5 1.1 1997 1.3 2.2 1.1 1998 1.5 1.7 1.0 1999 1.5 1.5 1.0 2000 0.9 1.3 1.0 2001 1.3 0.4 0.9 Ten-year mean 1.9 1.4 1.2 _________________________________________________________________________________________________. A number of possible explanations have been put forward to explain the excess mortality rate above for Gulf veterans. These include that the veterans may have had some sort of neurological impairment caused by an exposure in the Gulf, that their perception of risk may have been altered by the experience of conflict or that this may have been a disguised form of suicide. We are discussing with the scientific community how best to conduct an analysis of the factors underlying the figures.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

392 c455W;392 c467W; 78604

Session

2001-02

Subjects

Armed forces Death Accidents Iraq-Kuwait conflict Motor vehicles Gulf War syndrome Veterans

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

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