Medico-legal issues surrounding medical countermeasures used in the Gulf War--part 1.

When the multinational force deployed to the Gulf after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, military intelligence assessed the Iraqi's as possessing and being capable of using weapons of mass destruction. There was judged to be a real threat that chemical weapons, especially nerve agents, and certain biological weapons would be used. Coalition countries attempted to reduce the effects by the use of medical countermeasures. Since the Gulf conflict a series of medico legal problems from this policy have arisen; some of which have formed the basis of claims against MOD. In this paper I shall review how consent to treatment may have been modified in the military operational context and by the interface with military law. I shall look at the issues of clinical negligence and how duty of care may be affected. In the next article I shall look at relevant employment law; briefly review how medicines regulatory provision applies to medical countermeasures, whether they were properly licensed and whether in any case this applied to the Ministry of Defence in the context of deployment to the Gulf War.