NurseWeek

Medical committee finds no 'Gulf War syndrome'

By Tim Bergling
Health24News
September 8, 2000


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Washington (H24N).
Nine-and-a-half years after
the last shots were fired in the Gulf War, a new report is disputing the claims of veterans who say their Desert Storm service left them with a lifelong illness, the so-called Gulf War syndrome.

For almost a decade veterans who returned home from the U.S.-led conflict with Iraq have complained of a variety of illnesses and physical debilitations they claim originated in the Persian Gulf theater, a possible consequence of chemical or biological agents unleashed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Today a committee of the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine issued a report that quashes that notion. After what the committee describes as a "comprehensive assessment" of all the available scientific and anecdotal evidence, the panel says there is no provable link between the reputed syndrome and any of the "drugs, chemicals, and vaccines known to be present during the Gulf War."

An American Legion report lists some of the symptoms of Gulf War syndrome as chronic fatigue, rashes or unusual hair loss, headache, muscle pain, nervous system disorders, memory loss, respiratory problems, sleep disorders, and disorders of the heart, gastrointestinal or menstrual systems. Of the 697,000 men and women who served in the Gulf, as many as 45,000 have reported some form of the syndrome. While acknowledging that there have been documented illnesses among many of those veterans, the committee said it could not trace the cause to the war.

"We'd like to give veterans and their families definitive answers, but the evidence isn't strong enough," said Harold C. Sox Jr., Medical Department chair at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., and chair of the National Academy committee that went over the evidence for a syndrome. "Without data on the levels of exposure in the Persian Gulf theater, answers will remain elusive."

Attempts to reach Gulf War veterans groups for comment on the announcement were unsuccessful, but the Academy's report is not the last word likely to be heard on the subject. Next week a major university is set to release the results of its own study, which links Gulf War syndrome to Parkinson's disease.