- LONDON (AP) - Persian Gulf War veterans have a rate of general ill health
at least twice as high as forces who stayed home or were sent to Bosnia,
according to a new study of British troops.
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- The Lancet, a British medical journal,
published a study this week that confirms what previously has been reported
in studies of U.S. and Canadian veterans " that while no definable
disease could be found, going to the Persian Gulf in 1991 affected troops'
health.
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- The study of 8,195 soldiers, sailors
and pilots " the first to compare Gulf War veterans with troops who
served in another hazardous conflict around the same time " is the
largest of symptoms to date.
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- The men, half of whom had retired from
the military, filled out questionnaires about their current health.
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- They all reported a variety of 59 ailments,
including chronic fatigue, hair loss, rashes, headaches, joint pain, memory
loss, heart problems and nervous system disorders.
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- There was hardly any difference between
the Bosnia troops and men who served at the time of the Gulf War but were
not deployed.
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- Regardless of the ailment, however, vets
who served in the Persian Gulf were about twice as likely to complain of
it than the other two groups studied, the researchers said.
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- "The evidence is unequivocal that
going to the Gulf affects your health,'' said Dr. Simon Wessely, one of
the researchers from King's College at the University of London.
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- The researchers don't know why ailments
were more common in Gulf War vets, but said the study shows there is no
single cause, either physical or psychological, and that attempts to look
for a "smoking gun'' will not succeed.
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- "We have to look at a multitude
of causes and their interactions,'' Wessely said.
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- The researchers also found that hazards
of war " ranging from using pesticides and seeing dead bodies to getting
diesel fuel on your skin " were linked to more symptoms, regardless
of whether the men had served in the Gulf or somewhere else.
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- The study did find a slight increase
in ill health in those who had vaccines against biological threats such
as anthrax or plague. Receiving multiple vaccinations against routine infections
also was linked to a modest increase in illness, but only in the Persian
Gulf group and not in Bosnia.
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- In an editorial in the Lancet, a scientist
with the National Institutes of Health called the study one of the most
definitive conducted to date and said it added weight to the argument that
no unique "Gulf War Syndrome'' exists.
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- In his editorial, Stephen E. Straus,
chief of the laboratory of clinical investigation at the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, drew parallels between the ailments
cited by Gulf War vets and soldiers who fought in World War I.
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- "Although the possibility of some
still unappreciated environmental factor cannot be dismissed entirely,''
he wrote, "the Gulf War seems to differ from others only in a quantitative
sense and in the intensity of public discourse about it.''
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- But Dr. Robert Haley, an epidemiologist
at University of Texas Medical Center who believes a particular "Gulf
War syndrome'' exists, criticized the research. He said the scientists'
questions were too vague, so it was not surprising they found the same
symptoms in all of the veterans.
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- "They found questions that by their
nature are not unique. They didn't ask the right questions,'' he said.
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- Haley's research on a small number of
patients has previously concluded that some Gulf War veterans suffer from
distinct symptom clusters caused by chemical poisoning and that some may
suffer neurological damage from nerve gas or pesticides.
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