Report to VA rejects Gulf War syndrome

WASHINGTON -- The unexplained symptoms that afflict thousands of Gulf War veterans don't constitute a single illness, a federally funded study concludes.

Even though US and foreign veterans of the 1991 war report more symptoms of illness than do soldiers who didn't serve in the Persian Gulf, there is no such thing as Gulf War syndrome, according to the Veterans Affairs-sponsored report released yesterday.

Nearly 30 percent of all those who served in the brief war have reported problems.

``There's no unique pattern of symptoms. Every pattern identified in Gulf War veterans also seems to exist in other veterans, though it is important to note the symptom rate is higher, and it is a serious issue," said Dr. Lynn Goldman of Johns Hopkins University, who headed the Institute of Medicine committee that prepared the report.

The report did find evidence that Gulf War veterans had an elevated risk of the rare nerve disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig's disease. They also face an increased risk of anxiety disorders, depression, and substance abuse, it said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs contracted with the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, to review scientific studies and probe the issue, at the direction of Congress. VA spokesman Phil Budahn said the department would not comment until it had a chance to study the report.

Yesterday's report is the latest in the important series, on which the VA will rely to determine whether Gulf War veterans are eligible for special disability benefits if they are found to suffer from illnesses that can be linked to their service.

Veterans can now claim those benefits only by making an undiagnosed illness claim, said Steve Robinson, a Gulf War Army veteran and government relations director for Veterans for America.

``They keep saying it over and over, every year. We know that -- we know that there is no single thing that made veterans sick. We know this thing is likely a combination of various exposures," Robinson said in pushing for new studies he hopes will find what ails tens of thousands of vets.

However, the report's confirmation that Gulf War veterans are sicker may actually help them secure government benefits, said Shannon Middleton, assistant director of health policy for the American Legion.

A member of the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, also chartered by Congress, called the report the first step in cataloging the studies done on veterans of the conflict.

``But the most prevalent problems in Gulf War veterans are the multisymptom illness/Gulf War syndrome-type problems that still affect a sizable proportion of those who served in the war. ``I am disappointed that the IOM report does little to analyze what these studies collectively tell us about the nature and causes of these conditions," said Lea Steele, a Kansas State University epidemiologist who is the committee's scientific director.

Soldiers who served in the Persian Gulf after the Iraqi invasion of neighboring Kuwait in August 1990 have reported symptoms that include fatigue, memory loss, muscle and joint pain, rashes, and difficulty sleeping. The variety of symptoms has complicated efforts to pinpoint their cause, according to the report.

Nearly 700,000 US soldiers, along with troops from 34 other countries, took part in the Gulf War. Once in the region, those soldiers were exposed to a wide array of toxins and other potential health hazards, including smoke from hundreds of oil well fires, pesticides, depleted uranium ammunition, and possibly the nerve agent sarin, released during the demolition of a munitions dump.

Inadequate screening of soldiers before deployment in the Gulf War, coupled with a lack of environmental monitoring during the conflict, have hindered efforts to determine whether exposure to those contaminants is linked to any illness, the report also notes.

For years, the US government denied that the mysterious illnesses were linked to the war. It now acknowledges that at least some were due to wartime service. The government is no longer pointing to stress as the likely reason, as some federally funded studies had suggested.