# Gulf War Illness Linked to Neurotoxins



## M&M (Jan 20, 2002)

Posted to the Co-Cure mailing list.


> quote:28 September 2004 Gulf War Illness Linked to Neurotoxins A panel of outside experts chosen by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)has concluded that there is a "probable link" between neurotoxins such assarin gas and the mysterious ailments that struck veterans of the 1990Gulf War. This conclusion--in a draft report obtained by Science andscheduled for release later this month--is at odds with other analyses ofGulf War illness, including an August report from the Institute of Medicine(IOM).The VA panel, chaired by former Defense Department official and Vietnamveteran James Binns, was formed in 2002, more than 3 years after Congresspassed a law mandating a new research panel to advise the VA secretary. VAhas been under pressure from veterans to de-emphasize the view that stressand trauma were chief drivers of Gulf War illness.The authors of the new report argue that neurotoxins are the likeliestexplanation for the fatigue, muscle and joint pain, memory loss, anddizziness that has plagued tens of thousands of Gulf War veterans. Theyfocused particularly on sarin gas, pesticides, or the pyridostigmine bromidepills that troops took to protect them from nerve gas. On the 11-memberpanel are several veterans and six physician-scientists, including awell-known advocate for this controversial theory: Epidemiologist RobertHaley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. TheVA study also recommends that VA invest at least $60 million over the next 4years to probe the neurotoxin link. VA officials declined to comment priorto the report's release on how they might respond.But many scientists who study Gulf War cases are unconvinced thatneurotoxins can explain Gulf War illness. "I don't know of any seriousexpert review that has come to these conclusions," says Simon Wessely,director of the King's Centre for Military Health Research in London.Wessely, like many researchers in the field, believes that Gulf War illnessarose from a combination of the stress of war, the use of experimentalvaccines, and possibly exposures to environmental hazards such as oil-wellfires. In August, an IOM report reviewing literature on sarin gas and GulfWar illness concluded that there was "inadequate/insufficient evidence" tolink low-dose exposure with persistent neurological symptoms.Still, Lynn Goldman, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University and chairof yet another IOM panel on Gulf War illness, says that it may be too earlyto rule out any specific cause of this mysterious malady.ï¿½-JENNIFER COUZINCopyright ï¿½ 2004 by the American Association for the Advancement ofScience.


----------

