Ian Sample's article about sarin (Death is in the air, G2, 18 September) was informative, especially with regard to the MoD's 50-year cover-up of the death of Ronald Maddison following tests carried out at Porton Down. Another cover-up involves military personnel who were exposed to low levels of sarin released by the allied bombing campaign in the Gulf war (1990-91. Alarms specifically designed to detect sarin were repeatedly sounding over the battlefield, but they were intrusive and as there were no apparent casualties they were switched off. Because there were no immediate deaths it was wrongly assumed that low-level exposure would have no significant health effects.

Extensive studies by US researchers have led to the conclusion that Gulf war illness, or Gulf war syndrome, is a well defined complex chronic multi-system illness found in 25%-30% of the 697,000 US veterans deployed in the war. All the major systems of the body are affected – central, peripheral and autonomic nervous systems (with neuropsychiatric symptoms), cardiac, respiratory – in addition to those described by Ian Sample.

In the UK there has been no attempt to follow up the US studies, and the syndrome has been deceitfully and wilfully described as a psychogenic illness under a variety of acronyms of ignorance: SSIDs (signs, symptoms and ill-defined medical conditions), MUS (medically unexplained symptoms), PUPS (persistent unexplained physical symptoms). The US studies have firmly concluded that it is not in most cases related to post-traumatic stress. The Guardian would do great service to the neglected veterans of the Gulf war by exposing the shameful obfuscations of successive governments.

Professor Malcolm Hooper

Sunderland