Gulf War syndrome revisited

As troops returned home from the war in Iraq in late April, many wondered whether some would soon fall ill, as did thousands of those who fought in the first Gulf War (GWI) in 1991. During the past 12 years, nearly half of the 700,000 GWI veterans have sought treatment for a wide range of symptoms that many suspect were linked to exposure to depleted uranium, pesticides, vaccines, particulate matter and gases from burning oil wells, biological and chemical weapons, and the anti‐nerve‐gas drug pyridostigmine bromide (PB). About 29% of soldiers who were deployed are now considered to be disabled due to their wartime service, 23% are receiving disability benefits, and tens of thousands of the rest are still plagued by illness, but do not fall into these categories because of the lack of a clear‐cut diagnosis.For more than a decade, soldiers were told that no single cause, except stress, could explain complaints as diverse as headaches, dizziness, fatigue, bone and joint pain, memory loss, problems with sleep and concentration, muscle weakness, skin rashes and sores, and gastrointestinal problems. The US government cited statistics that showed that GWI veterans were not dying or being hospitalized at higher rates than other soldiers. However, it could not explain how stress could wreak such havoc on health, or why GWI veterans were being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at twice the rate of other groups. But new research is putting the stress diagnosis to rest and, after 12 years of desperation for the veterans, answers to the mystery surrounding GW syndrome are being found. This should lead not only to effective treatments, but also to more protection for soldiers and the general population against future military and terrorist attacks.In June 2002, the 12‐member Research Advisory Committee (RAC) on Gulf War …