A quarter of a century after U.S. troops fought in the first Gulf War, research shows toxic exposures led to the so-called Gulf War Syndrome, which affects up to 250,000 deployed military personnel.
This is according to a new review from Boston University environmental health professor Roberta White and her colleagues from other institutions, who reviewed existing literature on the Gulf War Illness especially those since 2008.
The findings were published in the journal Cortex, coinciding with the war’s 25th anniversary.
The 1991 Gulf War saw 700,000 U.S. troops win with an astoundingly low casualty rate, but made headlines when the American and British soldiers reported mysterious symptoms upon their return home. The two governments established disease registers that assessed over 100,000 veterans yet failed to find a pattern that will identify a specific condition.
Now, researchers pointed to exposure to pesticides and ingestion of pyridostigmine bromide (PB) – prophylactic medications for protecting against the effects of potential nerve gas – as casually linked to Gulf War Syndrome and its neurological effects in veterans. They also cited multiple studies linking the neurological issues to being exposed to nerve-gas agents sarin and cyclosarin, along with emissions from oil well fires.
The exposures led to damaged nervous and immune systems, including reduced white and gray matter in the brains of the veterans, according to the review.
"Further research into the mechanisms and etiology of the health problems of (Gulf War) veterans is critical to developing biomarkers of exposure and illness, and preventing similar problems for military personnel in future deployments,” the authors wrote.
The authors noted that six out of seven studies identified “significant” links between self-reported exposure to pesticides and their illness. Intake of the military-issued PB pills, too, had been consistently associated with illness in Gulf War veteran populations.
The review also saw separate conditions causing neurological disorders. Deployed troops suffered higher rates of stroke, ALS, and brain cancer compared to non-deployed ones. Other studies detected excess rates of brain cancer deaths and organ alterations among those who were most exposed to nerve agents as well as oil fire smoke.
For over two decades now, the team has been analyzing the health of affected Gulf War troops and their multiple ills, characterized by signs such as joint and muscle pain, fatigue, headaches, memory problems, skin rashes and gastrointestinal problems.
Perhaps due to its mysterious nature, Gulf War Syndrome had often been attributed to mere psychological stress. King’s College London professor Neil Greenberg said that while the symptoms are “very real,” they cannot seem to be pinned down on a exact physical problem.
"When we're stressed we have a tendency to turn psychological distress into physical symptoms," Greenberg said, also citing the fear likely caused by the five-year gap from when the veterans first complained of illness to the first study into the matter.
But the syndrome is not exactly psychological, argued experts that include White, who directed the 2008 panel Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses mandated by Congress.
The report, for instance, ruled out psychiatric issues, noting that the veterans had lower post-traumatic stress disorder rates and other psychiatric conditions than their military counterparts in other wars.
For 56-year-old Sean Rusling, a former sergeant of the Royal Army Medical Corps of the United Kingdom who served the war and experienced illnesses (including osteoporosis at age 37), the illness should be properly addressed.
"It's an insult that the Ministry of Defense doesn't recognise the condition suffered by me and so many others," he said.
Photo: See Li | Flickr
