Gulf War illness is from exposure to toxic chemicals
Often dismissed as a psychosomatic disorder, Gulf War illness is actually due to exposure to toxic chemicals affecting at least 25 percent of the 700,000 U.S. veterans who took part in the 1991 Gulf War, according to a recent federal panel of scientific experts and veterans. The main causes are pesticides that were often overused during the war, and a drug given to U.S. troops to protect them from nerve gas.
Gulf War illness is frequently described as a pattern of symptoms that includes memory and concentration problems, chronic headaches, fatigue and widespread pain. Other symptoms often include persistent digestive problems, respiratory symptoms and skin rashes. There are also much higher rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease) in this group of veterans, and soldiers who were downwind from large-scale munitions demolitions in 1991 have died from brain cancer at twice the rate of other Gulf War veterans.
The panel presented the 450-page report to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake. No effective treatments have been found for the disorder. The committee reported that overall federal funding for Gulf War research has declined substantially in recent years. In conclusion, the group urged lawmakers to devote $60 million annually to such programs.
In an article by Health Day News, James Binns, chairman of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses said,”It took 20 years to admit that Agent Orange, a defoliant used in the Vietnam war, caused illness. It’s now coming up to 17 years on Gulf War illness. Troop exposures [to these chemicals] were a serious but honest mistake. Covering it up rather than trying to help them has been unconscionable.”
via Health Day News, November 17, 2008
Bookmark this page
E-mail this story
Print this post
0 Responses to “Gulf War illness is from exposure to toxic chemicals”