.
Teaching and Learning Resource (TLR)
1. Title
Gulf War Syndrome - Part 2: Critical Textual Analysis
2. Keywords
‘Gulf War Syndrome’; environmental and health risks; contested knowledge claims; print media; media representation; critical textual analysis
3. Introduction
Students of geography, environmental studies and allied subjects are accustomed to using the broadcast and news media, along with other forms of mass communication (such as the political/public relations output of business corporations, pressure groups, tourist authorities, governments and embassies etc), as source materials for ‘project’ work. While most students entering higher education are broadly acquainted with ideas about media selectivity and ‘spin’ - and may in some respects be capable of quite sophisticated ‘readings’ of the mass media - many are unfamiliar with the skills required for systematic critical appraisal of these sources.
For educational purposes, students may be in the habit of tacitly distinguishing between more and less ‘informative’ media sources (e.g. between broadsheet and tabloid newspapers); between more and less ‘biased’ sources (e.g. between the political partisanship of national newspapers and the ‘impartiality’ of public service broadcasters); and between ‘fictional’ and ‘factual’ (especially news, current affairs and documentary) output. But continued adherence to these mainly ‘common-sense’-derived distinctions, if unchallenged, tends to obscure the ‘problematic’ nature of all mass media outputs; and may impede the overall development of students’ critical faculties.
Thus, students of the environment can benefit from learning to critically appraise mass media outputs, by asking questions such as:
Arguably, these media-related skills of critical appraisal are becoming increasingly important in higher education - particularly to the extent that pressures for ‘vocational relevance’ are tending to enhance the influence and prestige of business and other non-academic stakeholders within HE; and to the extent that many students now routinely use Internet-based (and other) political/public relations output in their learning.
Arguably also, students should bring similar skills and questions to the appraisal of academic texts: for example, to representations of environmental questions, whose provisional and contested science may well be portrayed as definitive and consensual; and whose values and assumptions may be so widely shared as to evade critical examination, particularly when cloaked in linguistic and other academic conventions which are themselves commonly associated with objectivity or neutrality.
This TLR is intended to follow on from ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ Part 1: Claims and Claims-Makers, which examines the case of those veterans who claim to be suffering from illnesses arising from their exposure to environmental and health risks in the Gulf - along with the (sometimes contrary) claims of political and military leaders, scientists and others. This follow-up activity invites students to critically appraise a tabloid newspaper article, which is strongly sympathetic to the veterans’ claims. Annex One (below) provides a background to the debates about ‘Gulf War Syndrome’. The newspaper article itself is provided in AnnexTwo.
4. Aim
The aim of this TLR is to assist students in developing transferable skills associated with active learning and critical analysis, notably the capacity to think critically about representations of environmental and health risks in mass media and (indirectly) other texts.
5. Learning outcomes
On successful completion of this TLR, students will:
6. Pre-requisites
Students will find it difficult to engage with this TLR if they are not pre-disposed to consider knowledge (including scientific knowledge) in terms of ‘claims-making’ activities, and if they are unfamiliar with the key claims and claims-makers in this particular dispute. For this reason, it is recommended that ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ Part 1: Claims and Claims-Makers is used prior to this one.
The TLR does not require any in-depth knowledge of environmental or media studies, textual analysis etc. However, students should have some ability to think critically about the explicit and implicit messages conveyed in mass media representations of environment/nature - rather than simply regarding media output as a neutral ‘information’, for the study of environmental issues.
Broad familiarity with mass media portrayal of controversial environmental issues would also be advantageous. The following TLR examines mass media representations of environment/nature in general (i.e. with no exclusive focus on issues which are widely recognised as ‘controversial’, or on any particular media or genres):
Students should also be capable of active learning, including participation in group discussions and plenary feedback sessions (class-based mode of use only: see How to use TLR, below).
7. How to use TLR
This TLR could be used to facilitate student-centred discussion, and/or could form the basis of an assignment.
For the former, it is preferable that participants have prior access to the text and accompanying questions. Used in this way, the exercise is designed to operate interactively, and will probably lose efficacy with SSRs in excess of around 15:1. Where students have limited relevant experience on which to draw, team teaching could assist in stimulating debate. Conversely, more experienced students could initially work in small groups (perhaps of four or five), with limited supervision; a concluding ‘plenary’ session might then be arranged to allow each group to lead the discussion of one major point. Depending on the students’ level of experience, between 60 and 90 minutes could be profitably devoted to the class-based exercise (i.e. excluding the private study element).
8. Instructions to students
Read ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ (Annex One) and the newspaper article ‘Why do they treat our sick and dying Gulf War heroes like beggars? The conspiracy of silence that must end now’ (AnnexTwo); and then consider the following questions, as they relate to the newspaper article:
9. Stimulus material
10. Degree stage
For students of cross-disciplinary programmes in, for example, geography and environmental studies, the learning outcomes associated with this TLR should be achievable at Level 2. However students on more heavily scientific programmes (for example, in environmental science) - where social and philosophical perspectives are introduced at a later stage and/or to supplement a mainly scientific curriculum - may be challenged by this TLR, even at Level 3 (particularly if these experiences have explicitly or implicitly encouraged the concretisation of an ‘unproblematic’ view of scientific knowledge, as ‘truth’ or ‘fact’).
11. Resource requirements
This TLR can be used in any ordinary teaching room. An overhead projector (with transparencies and marker pens) and/or flipchart (with marker pens) may be useful.
12. Preparation
As indicated above (Instructions to students), student preparation for this TLR involves reading ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ (Annex One) and the newspaper article ‘Why do they treat our sick and dying Gulf War heroes like beggars? The conspiracy of silence that must end now’ (Annex Two). Additionally, students may find it useful to read a selection from the Recommended reading list. No additional preparation is required from the tutor.
13. Links with other TLRs
Contested knowledge claims associated with environmental and health risks are examined in:
Media representation and critical textual analysis feature prominently in:
More generally, the aims and/or learning outcomes of this TLR are related to those of other TLRs listed in the following 'thematic clusters':
14. Follow-up activities
Follow-up work on environmental and health risks, including the contested knowledge claims associated with them, could involve either (1) use of the broadly theoretical literature cited below (Recommended reading), and/or (2) examination of additional cases - for example, the alleged risks associated with GM foods, with use of mobile phones, with bodily exposure to the sun, and with military service in the Balkans.
These cases are also, to a greater or lesser extent, the focus of mass media attention - and could, therefore, be used as a basis for further exercises in critical textual analysis. Alternatively, work on media representation of ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ itself could be undertaken by adapting the learning activities suggested in:
15. Recommended reading
I - ‘Gulf War Syndrome’
Books
Academic Papers
Other Sources (including newspaper articles)
II - The mass media
The Gulf War began in August 1990, when Iraq invaded the small neighbouring oil state of Kuwait. It ended in February 1991 with the expulsion of Iraqi forces, by a military alliance drawn mainly from Europe and the United States (the so-called ‘Gulf Alliance’). Approximately 50,000 British, and almost 700,000 US, personnel were amongst those involved in the Gulf War.
Since the ending of hostilities, an increasing number of Gulf War veterans - mainly in the UK and the USA - have claimed to be suffering from a range illnesses that they attribute to their service in the Gulf. It has recently been alleged that as many as 5,000 British veterans may be ill, and that about 400 have died (The Guardian, 15 January 1999); figures as high as 70,000 sufferers have been cited for the US (‘Horizon - Gulf War Jigsaw’, BBC Television, 14 May 1998).
The symptoms and conditions reported are highly variable, but with chronic fatigue, joint and muscle pains, severe headaches, sleep disorders and depression amongst the most common. However numbness of hands and feet, weight loss, muscle spasms, paralysis, chest pains, heart problems, fevers, swollen glands, urinary incontinence, dysentery, rectal bleeding, skin rashes and lesions, impotence, arthritis, asthma, liver disorders, cancers and other problems have all been claimed in a lesser number of cases. Suicides, birth defects amongst offspring conceived after the War, and miscarriages (mainly amongst partners of male veterans), have also been attributed to the range of conditions which have become popularly known as ‘Gulf War Syndrome’.
Possible causes are almost as numerous as the range of alleged symptoms and conditions themselves. The most commonly mentioned are:
Particular attention has been given to the possibility of synergistic effects - though with little consensus over the relative importance of different contributory factors, or concerning the nature and significance of interactions between them.
Indeed, there is intense controversy over almost all aspects of these claims on both sides of the Atlantic, where UK and US governments and military leaders alike have consistently denied the existence of ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ - though all now acknowledge that veterans are disproportionately subject to a range of physical and psychological illnesses which may be, directly or indirectly, connected with their service in the Gulf. Conversely, the case for ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ has been advanced principally by veterans themselves - albeit articulated by pressure groups, legal representatives and the mass media, and with support from some members of the political and scientific communities. In Britain the most prominent campaigning group is the Gulf War Veterans Association (GWVA), along with a range of environmental/health and disability rights groups. Mass media coverage has been widespread and predominantly sympathetic.
The veterans’ case is itself evolving and characterised by some diversity of view, but may be taken to centre around three key claims, which are set out in the following three sections.
Veterans’ Claim No. One: The military authorities exposed service personnel to unreasonable medical and environmental hazards
It is alleged that many necessary precautions were not taken, due variously to ignorance, neglect and ill-judged perceptions of the exigencies of war; and that the intensity of these hazards was frequently heightened by synergistic effects, to produce a variety of symptoms and conditions - notably those associated with breakdown of immune and neurological systems. This first claim itself has a number of dimensions, notably:
Bloom et al, eds (1994: 238-9) have claimed that some of the antidotes for biological or nerve-gas weapons administered to US personnel had not been approved for general civilian use by the US Food and Drug Administration. Such drugs must normally be given only with ‘informed consent’ - that is, voluntarily, and with knowledge of what drugs are being administered, and with what possible side-effects. After the invasion of Kuwait, however, the FDA issued a new general regulation (Rule 23(d)) which declared that consent “is not feasible in a specific military operation involving combat or the immediate threat of combat”. Bloom et al, eds (op cit) also report several US veterans’ testimonies which allege involuntary administration of vaccines.
According to The Mail on Sunday (5 November 1995), a UK Ministry of Defence spokesperson claimed that British drug administration policy was based on ‘informed consent’, but acknowledged that:
It is impossible … to be absolutely certain that under wartime conditions and constraints, the correct procedures were universally and exactly followed.
GWVA representatives told the UK House of Commons Defence Select Committee in 1995:
“ ... never before have these drugs been administered in such quantities, in such a mixture, over such a condensed period of time, without proper medical supervision, in such confused dosages. (House of Commons Defence Select Committee 1995: 61)
British soldiers who sprayed tents and equipment with organo-phosphates were allegedly denied proper protective clothing, even though senior officers were repeatedly warned of the dangers. Solicitor Hilary Meredith, who represents many UK veterans, has claimed that at least 3,000 people were exposed to ‘very high-toxic old-generation’ insecticides (see Daily Mail, 13 November 1996). These were probably purchased locally, and would have carried Arabic-only labelling.
Parallels are repeatedly drawn with the adverse effects suffered by many agricultural users of organo-phosphates, including the possible links with BSE and nvCJD (see, for example, Daily Mail, 7 October 1996; The Times, 11 December 1996).
For example, some US and British veterans, including chemical warfare specialists, allege that they were exposed to stores of Iraqi mustard gas in Kuwait - but that their respective governments and military leaderships have sought to suppress these claims (see Mail on Sunday, 5 and 12 November 1995; The Times, 15 December 1996). It has also been alleged that chemical weapon releases occurred when American aircraft bombed Iraqi chemical weapons plants (see The Times, 11 December 1996). More diffuse allegations concern exposure to ‘depleted uranium’ used in the Gulf Allies’ own weaponry and armoury. Depleted uranium is a by-product of the military and civilian nuclear industries, and is approximately half as radioactive as natural uranium. It is about 2.5 times as dense as steel - and is therefore used to enhance both the penetrative power of weapons and the protective capability of military vehicles (see Bloom et al, eds 1994: 134-37).
Veterans’ Claim No. Two: During and since the conflict, the military authorities have variously failed to generate, record and act on information of relevance to veterans’ illnesses; have withheld and destroyed information; have distributed misleading information; and have obstructed enquiries by others
These actions, and inactions, are allegedly a consequence of incompetence and conspiracy (the latter motivated by fear of recrimination and massive compensation claims); and have (allegedly) obstructed veterans’ attempts to reveal the ‘truth’. According to some accounts, the military authorities have been too ready to blame veterans’ problems on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), as opposed to medical and environmental hazards (see Bloom et al, eds 1994: 241) - and have even implied that some are ‘trying it on’ for compensation (see Daily Mail, 12 December 1996).
Central to this second claim are belated acknowledgements, by the UK and US governments, that service personnel were exposed to organo-phosphate insecticides and to chemical weapons respectively. Both such admissions were made only after years of denials and sustained pressure from veterans. In the UK, (then) Defence Minister Nicholas Soames told the House of Commons in October 1996 that organo-phosphates (including some purchased locally) had been more widely used than previously reported; that there could be a link between organo-phosphates and veterans’ illnesses; and that he had previously - and inadvertently - misled the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, based on information available to him at the time. Also in October 1996, US authorities for the first time acknowledged possible large-scale exposure of personnel to nerve and mustard gas, especially during destruction of Iraqi stockpiles (see Daily Mail, 3, 5 and 7 October 1996).
It has also been widely alleged that the military authorities maintained inadequate records, especially of vaccinations administered and of organo-phosphates purchased in the Gulf; that medical and other records have ‘lost’ or destroyed on a large scale; and that ‘national security’ has been used as a reason for denying veterans access to their medical records (see, for example, Daily Mail, 3 October 1996; The Times, 11 and 15 December 1996). Examples of more specific allegations include a report in The Times (15 December 1996) that UK veterans’ solicitor, Hilary Meredith, was threatened over her possession of a classified report which documented exposure to harmful chemicals; and that the MoD has obstructed US Defense Department-funded research, into UK veterans’ illnesses, being undertaken at King’s College London (see below, Unwin et al 1999; Ismail et al 1999).
Veterans’ Claim No. Three: Diagnosis and treatment of their illnesses have been impeded, in part by the unprecedented nature of their Gulf War experiences and consequent medical conditions, but also by the military authorities’ own obstructive behaviour
This claim again centres, in part, on the allegedly confused picture of toxic environmental exposures and drugs administered. But it also hinges on the inadequacy of conventional medical examination, in the face of potentially complex and unfamiliar problems. As early as 1993, for example, one US military reserve major reportedly advocated “the use of brain scans and specialized tests involving hair analysis, blood analysis, fat cell biopsies, and bone analysis, to determine the nature of the illnesses, which he believes may include brain damage, central nervous damage, immune damage, liver damage, gland or hormone damage, severe metabolic imbalance and chemical hypersensitivity” (Bloom et al, eds 1994: 242). This third claim also rests on the alleged insufficiency of medical knowledge, including the absence of preventive or ameliorative treatments and the inadequacy of diagnostic techniques, particularly where unfamiliar conditions are involved. For example in the US, particular concern has focused on sandfly fever virus, or ‘leishmaniasis’ - for which, according to one US military doctor:
The current diagnosis is woefully insensitive … there could be thousands of infections. (Interview with Major Alan J Magill, MD, US Army, reported in Bloom et al, eds 1994: 241)
Evaluating the Claims
Clearly these three claims cannot simply be accepted in their entirety, at face value, and without qualification. Many of those who have upheld the ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ case, do so from a position of prior ‘value commitments’ and other circumstances which may well predispose them to a particular view - and particularly so, to the extent that scientific and other judgements (for example, medical diagnoses) are unavoidably made in circumstances of scant and unreliable evidence. Of course, almost precisely this same line of reasoning has been used against the military authorities themselves - of whom it can be argued, equally, that many of the claims advanced reflect their personal and corporate interests. What criteria and evidence, then, may be considered ‘admissible’, in seeking to evaluate these competing claims?
It is notable, firstly, that the military authorities have progressively shifted their ground in favour of the veterans’ position (for example, in acknowledging organo-phosphate and possible chemical weapons exposure; and in ordering enquiries and commissioning research into the veterans’ own claims) - but not vice-versa. Furthermore, the UK authorities now implicitly acknowledge past errors, by conspicuously declaring their commitment to “addressing the concerns of our Gulf veterans … openly, sympathetically and seriously” (http://www.mod.uk/policy/gulfwar/index.htm - last updated 12 February 1999). However the significance of these changes may reside - at least in part - in their perceived political expediency, in the face of widespread public and (especially) media hostility: in other words, they do not point, directly or unproblematically, to any ‘objective’ judgement on the competing claims.
It is notable also that a vast number of individual testimonies support the veterans’ three key claims, most of which are broadly consistent one with another; that many such testimonies have been given under oath; and that the wider interests and prior value commitments of most such claimants would not, seemingly, predispose them to take a stance against the military authorities. Conversely, these testimonies are clearly not independent, one from another; and may be influenced by the reluctance of ‘battle-hardened’ soldiers to recognise any adverse psychological effects (especially stress-related illness) arising from their Gulf experiences. It is also conceivable that veterans alleging ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ have been encouraged to testify by sympathetic parties (1), while others have been reluctant to oppose the ‘popular’ consensus. (The contrary argument, of course, is that some sufferers have been reluctant to speak out against the military authorities - particularly whilst they remain in active service.)
A less obviously partisan view has been provided by the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, whose report of 1995 concluded that “MoD’s response has been ... characterised throughout by scepticism, defensiveness and general torpor” (House of Commons Defence Select Committee 1995: xxix). Once again, however, it should not be supposed that such a report is somehow interest-free and hence ‘objective’: in particular, it is arguably inherent in the membership and constitution of Commons Select Committees that they tend to distance themselves from unpopular official positions.
So far as ‘expert’ scientific claims are concerned, recent findings from authoritative and ostensibly ‘disinterested’ sources suggest the emergence of at least a partial consensus - in favour of recognising some links between many veterans’ illnesses and their exposure to Gulf-related medical and environmental hazards. For example Unwin et al (1999) and Ismail et al (1999) confirm an excess of physical and psychological symptoms amongst Gulf veterans (vis-à-vis non-Gulf service personnel, including Bosnia veterans); and identify a number of possible causes, including vaccinations against biological weapons, nerve agent protective pills, exposure to Kuwait’s burning oil wells, and war trauma. But they argue that the absence of a common causal factor in the symptoms identified, negates the idea of a unique Gulf War ‘syndrome’. Only partly in contrast with these conclusions, Haley et al (1997) report six discrete Gulf War ‘conditions’ or ‘syndromes’, each characterised by a distinctive cluster of exposures and symptoms (though some veterans are linked with more than one condition). All six conditions are said to be associated with damage to the nervous system, caused by exposure to chemicals which inhibit the enzyme cholinesterase. Haley et al draw comparisons with Organophosphate-Induced Delayed Polyneuropathy (OPIDP) in farm workers, but suggest that few non-specialist physicians are sufficiently familiar with this condition to have considered it in the case of Gulf War veterans. They also claim that conventional analysis of their data yielded no significant findings, due to the variability of veterans’ symptoms - implying, of course, that other research, drawing contrary conclusions, may have been methodologically inappropriate. However an editorial comment on this paper (Landrigan 1997) which appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) cautions against drawing firm conclusions from Haley et al’s relatively small sample sizes. Furthermore, according to a New Scientist report, the editor of JAMA is similarly cautious, and particularly suspects that veterans who believed themselves to be ill may have self-selected disproportionately into the study (see Kleiner 1997: 8).
Sources
Note:
(1) For example, Bloom et al, eds (1994) is written on behalf of ARC, which is a “non-profit, public interest organization concerned with the effects of military policies and activities on international security, environmental quality, human health and economic vitality” (op cit: xii).