The Pentagon has admitted that it delayed introducing a routine
screening of troops returning from Iraq for mild brain injuries because
it feared that the extent of the problem could mushroom to the scale of
the Gulf War syndrome after the first Iraq war.

The head of the
Pentagon’s medical assessments division has told USA Today that he
wanted to avoid another controversy as potentially huge as Gulf War
syndrome.

He said the military feared announcing a screening
programme would encourage troops to think they had a condition and make
correct diagnosis more difficult.

“Some individuals will seek diagnosis from provider to provider to provider,” Col Kenneth Cox said.

The
first evidence of what is known as mild traumatic brain injury (TBI)
was discovered among soldiers in Iraq just months after the invasion in
March 2003.

By January 2006 federal scientists specialising in the condition were calling for immediate screening.

Yet
the Pentagon is only now gearing up to implementing the screening
process, which involves soldiers being asked a series of questions
designed to indicate whether they are suffering symptoms.

Those symptoms include headaches, dizziness, memory loss, nausea and convulsions.

Over
the five years of the Iraq war, the extent of the problem of TBI has
become better understood, and it is now classed as a “signature injury”
of the war. The injuries are caused largely by roadside bombs that can
send concussion waves through the brain even at a distance.

An
army survey of more than 2,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan
suggested that about 11% showed signs of mild TBI, though some
estimates have put it closer to 20%.

Since 2003, 1.6 million
troops have served in Iraq alone, many of whom return to the US without
any awareness of their condition and hence no treatment.

In
Britain, the Ministry of Defence has admitted that about 500 personnel
had suffered mild TBI. Like the Pentagon, the MoD is now considering
planting sensors into soldiers’ helmets to monitor the shock waves
passing through them.

The delay in the Pentagon’s screening
programme has been fiercely criticised by politicians of both main
parties and by the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force.