Gulf War Syndrome



Gulf War syndrome (GWS) or Gulf War illness (GWI) is the name given to an illness with symptoms including increases in the rate of immune system disorders and birth defects, reported by combat veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. It has not always been clear whether these symptoms were related to Gulf War service. New research indicates that war veterans who have developed numerous health complaints have areas of the brain that are measurably smaller than those of healthier vets.

Symptoms attributed to this syndrome have been wide-ranging, including chronic fatigue (physical), loss of muscle control, headaches, dizziness and loss of balance, memory problems, muscle and joint Pain and nociception, indigestion, skin problems, shortness of breath, and even insulin resistance. U.S. Gulf War veterans have experienced mortality rates exceeding those of U.S. Vietnam veterans . Brain cancer deaths, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease) and fibromyalgia are now recognized by the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments as potentially connected to service during the Gulf War.

Medical problems by soldier nationality offensive ground campaign, February 24-28, 1991, by nationality (click for detail).

About 30 percent of the 700,000 U.S. servicemen and women in the first Persian Gulf War have registered in the Gulf War Illness database set up by the American Legion. Some still suffer a baffling array of serious health impairing symptoms (Associated Press, August 12, 2006, free archived copy at: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0812-06.htm most recently visited June 7th, 2007). The tables below apply only to coalition forces involved in combat. Since each nation's soldiers generally served in different geographic regions, epidemiologists are using these statistics to correlate effects with exposure to the different suspected causes.

U.S. and UK, with the highest rates of excess illness, are distinguished from the other nations by higher rates of pesticide use, use of anthrax vaccine, and somewhat higher rates of exposures to oil fire smoke and reported chemical alerts. France, with possibly the lowest illness rates, had lower rates of pesticide use, and no use of anthrax vaccine. (page 78). French troops also served to the North and West of all other combat troops (page 68), away and upwind of major combat engagements.

Excess prevalence of general symptoms: (page 70){|class=wikitable!Symptom!!U.S.!!UK!!Australia!!Denmark|-|Fatigue||23%||23%||10%||16%|-|Headache||17%||18%||7%||13%|-|Memory problems||32%||28%||12%||23%|-|Muscle/joint pain||18%||17%||5%||