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THE PENTAGON'S TOXIC e Fair Article Page 4 of 10 . ‘, i’ re | Gulf. The report had gone to press, and no one wanted to reopen the investigation. Still, Dertzbaugh couldn't shake the feeling that it was important to give Asa's theory a closer look. In December 1994, he asked her to write a report and submit it to the Office of the Army Surgeon General. Dertzbaugh even made a personal pitch; he told the office that Asa's theory appeared to explain the patients' problems, as he understood them. Asa says she asked the once for vaccine samples to test free of charge-to no avail. Herb Smith didn't call Pam Asa. She called him. In March 1995, 60 Minutes ran a segment on Gulf War syndrome that made acase for chemical weapons as its cause. Promoting this view was one of the veterans whom newsman Ed Bradley interviewed, Colonel Herbert Smith. "We were getting hammered with a lot of information about us getting affected by chemicals. [ was getting sick enough where I couldn't argue with anyone. As you noticed,” Smith recalls now, "they were talking about chemicals. [Former] senator Don Riegle [Democrat, Michigan], his team, and Jay Rockefeller [Democrat, West Virginia] and his team they all said it was chemicals." Watching the program, Asa noticed that Smith's knuckle joints had a particular swelling that she had seen before. She was convinced he had an autoimmune disease. Asa decided to track down Colonel Smith. "60 Minutes called me and said, 'We got people calling and they wanna talk to you," says Smith. "And I said, 'Fine, you know, doesn't bother me, let em call.' I was getting people calling me up and saying,'You've got Lyme disease; you've got chronic fatigue syndrome; you need to take vitamin C.' They were trying to help, but they were nuts. When Pam called, I thought, Well, here's another one gonna tell me, you know, what I've got and how to fix it. And then she starts talking and it just makes sense to me." About one month later, Smith says, he flew to Memphis to be treated by the Asas. After examining Smith, Dr. Kevin Asa agreed with his wife that the diagnosis was systemic lupus erythematosus (S-L.E.). Physicians back at Waiter Reed balked. Smith recalls them protesting, "You can't have lupus! You're a white male in your 50s. People like you don't get autoimmune diseases!" They refused to run their own tests. Smith was not surprised at this response from the people who had been telling him that his problems were all psychological. "I had a doctor there, a guy named Michael Roy [major, U.S. Army]- . He accused me of bleeding myself to fake my anemia," says Smith. "I have a degree in chemistry as well as being a doctor of veterinary medicine. Anyway, he says I'm a pretty smart guy, so I must know how to screw up my lab results." (Dr. Roy could not be reached for comment.) Smith wouldn't let this insult go. "I wrote a letter to the commanding general, and I told him J had an officer, a major, accuse a superior officer, me, of conduct unbecoming an officer, and perjury. They gave me this new doctor, and he comes in saying,'Well, you know, Dr. Roy says you got all these psychological problems.’ And I said,'What about all the V.A. findings [which supported the conclusion that Smith was physically ill]?"The V.A.? They're wrong. They don't know what they're doing.’ So I asked, 'If you won't believe the V.A., who will you believe? And this new doctor says,'We'll believe either N.LH. [National Institutes of Health] or Johns Hopkins.” Smith sent his lab results to the N.LH.'s Dr. John Klippel, who had co-edited a standard medical -school text in this field called Rheumatology. "He reviewed the case," says Smith, “and he said the Asas' diagnosis was correct, but he couldn't see me, because he wasn't accepting new patients." (Dr. Klippel could not be reached for comment.) Smith then sent his records to another leading rheumatologist, Dr. Michelle Petri of Johns Hopkins University Medical School. "She called me up and said the Asas' diagnosis was correct, but she’s going to have to run her own tests to confirm this. 1 gave more blood. Dida brain scan. And the results were pretty much the same." When the Asas treated Smith for lupus, his pain subsided. He could get out of his wheelchair and walk again, provided he used canes. Word about Asa had spread on the Intemet's Gulf War-veteran grapevine, and others started to get in touch with her. One was Dr. Charles Jackson, a general practitioner who used to work at the V.A. hospital in Tuskegee, Alabama. Jackson told her he had hundreds of Gulf War-syndrome patients; he didn't know what it was or how to treat it. Asa asked him to run standard http://www. idir.net/~krogers/vantyfair-html 11/8/2005