Preliminaries

• Letter of submission from Neil Johnston,
  President of the Repatriation Commission (31kb)
• Letter of approval from Professor Terry Dwyer AM,
  Director, Menzies Centre for Population Health Research (12kb)
• Letter of submission from Associate Professor Malcolm Sim,
  Principal Investigator, Australian Gulf War Veterans' Health Study (19kb)
• Authors
• Acknowledgements

ISBN 1 920720 19 7 (online version)

Authors

Monash University

Associate Professor Malcolm Sim, Principal Investigator

Associate Professor Michael Abramson

Associate Professor Andrew Forbes

Dr Deborah Glass

Ms Jill Ikin

Mr Peter Ittak

Dr Helen Kelsall

Dr Karin Leder

Mr Dean McKenzie

Professor John McNeil

Health Services Australia (HSA)

Health Services Australia Team, consisting of doctors, nurses and psychologists

Other Institutions

Associate Professor Mark Creamer, Australian Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, University of Melbourne

Dr Lin Fritschi, University of Western Australia (Mortality and Cancer Study only)

 

Acknowledgments

We would like to gratefully acknowledge the contribution of several individuals and groups who have assisted us in undertaking the Australian Gulf War Veterans’ Health Study.  A large multidisciplinary study such as this requires input from people from very diverse disciplines and backgrounds from both the research and veteran communities.

We are grateful to the following Australian-based researchers for their assistance with particular aspects of the study design, data collection instruments and analysis: Prof Ian Hickie and A/Prof Andrew Lloyd, University of NSW, Sydney, NSW; Prof Christopher Fairley, University of Melbourne; Dr Jane Halliday, Perinatal Data Collection Unit, Department of Human Services, Victoria; A/Prof Paul Lancaster, National Perinatal Statistics Unit, Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; Dr Wendy D’Souza and Dr Richard Macdonell neurologists, Austin & Repatriation Medical Centre; Captain John Parkes, CSC, RANR retired; A/Prof Andrew Mackinnon, Mental Health Research Unit of Victoria and Department of Psychological Medicine, Monash University; Dr David Johns, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Alfred Hospital; Dr Krystyna Rowland, pathologist, Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science; and Mr Bill King, Centre for Tobacco Control, Cancer Council of Victoria.

There are several international researchers who we would like to thank for their assistance and advice.  We would particularly like to thank Prof Simon Wessely and Ms Catherine Unwin of the Gulf War Illness Research Unit, Guy’s, King’s and St Thomas’s Medical School, London, UK; Dr Han Kang, Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington DC, USA; Dr Craig Hyams, Epidemiology Division, Naval Medical Research Institute, Maryland, USA; Col K.C. Scott, National Defence, Canada; Dr Bradley Doebbeling, The Iowa Persian Gulf Study Group, University of Iowa, Iowa, USA; Dr Drue Barrett, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; and Prof Nicola Cherry, previously at University of Manchester, UK; and Group Captain William Coker, Royal Air Force, UK.  We are particularly grateful to those researchers in this group who have allowed us to use parts of their questionnaires and other data forms.

There are also many other people who have provided important input to the study.  These include the Gulf War veterans in the focus group who assisted in the development of the Military Service experience questionnaire; Dr Keith Horsley and Dr Warren Harrex of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA); Mr Bob Connolly and his contact and recruitment team at DVA; Dr Phil Boorman, DVA; the Scientific Advisory Committee chaired by Professor Terry Dwyer OA, Menzies Centre for Population Health Research, University of Tasmania; Dr David Stevens, the Director of Naval Historical Studies; Roger Lee, Army Historian; Mr Dave Watts, Cdre Michael Dowsett and the other members of the Consultative Forum; the Personnel Branches of the Navy, Army and Air Force and the many other serving and former members of the Australian Defence Force who provided advice and information.

Dr Michael Pincus was the National Projects’ Coordinator for HSA at the commencement of the study.  Dr Pincus very unfortunately became seriously ill and died during the course of the study.  We would like to gratefully acknowledge Dr Pincus’ strong support for this study and his very important role in the early development and conduct of the study methods.  We would also like to acknowledge the HSA team which included administrative staff, nurses, doctors and clinical psychologists who provided the medical and psychological assessments for the study.  These were the data collectors who actually liaised with, interviewed and examined all the Gulf War and comparison group participants in the study.

The authors acknowledge the help provided by several other members of the Monash University team in setting up and ensuring the smooth running of the study; Ewan MacFarlane, Geoff Aldred, Koraly Giuliano, Emma Conyers, Julie Attard, Jane Ball and Lucia MacFarlane.

Finally, and very importantly, we would like to acknowledge the time and effort made by Gulf War veterans and members of the comparison group to participate in this study.  They freely gave up their time to make a very important contribution to health research of Australian veterans.

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