(NEW YORK) MintPress – For the 250,000 veterans of the war in the Persian Gulf who have been afflicted with what is known as Gulf War syndrome, the latest study on the origins of the illness is a major breakthrough.
The findings, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, show that the acute and chronic symptoms result from extensive damage to the autonomic nervous system.
When military personnel returned home later in 1991 after the Gulf War, many began streaming into hospitals complaining of memory loss, cloudy thinking, breathing difficulties, problems sleeping and excessive sweating. But until now, many doctors have maintained the illness is a psychological reaction to combat.
“Many of these veterans have been told that there is nothing wrong with them,” said Dr. Robert Haley, an epidemiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and the study’s lead author.
“Our hope is that the physicians treating our veterans will read this study and recognize the symptoms, and that this will lead to better treatments. This is the linchpin.”
The hope is also that Congress and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will devote more money to Gulf War syndrome research.
Funding has declined sharply since 2001, but now the scientific evidence is clear: These veterans are sick.
Arduous work
Haley and Steven Vernino, chief of the neuromuscular division at Southwestern, sent 97 Gulf War vets, some chronically ill and some healthy, through 25 tests, including brain imaging, in seven days.
The group was drawn from a sample of 8,000 veterans and constituted a scientific representation of the nearly 700,000 troops who served in the war.
Haley has, in fact, been studying the illness for 15 years; he and his group have produced hundreds of research papers.
It was a visit by Dallas billionaire Ross Perot that first alerted Haley to the Gulf War veterans’ plight.
“He was seeing a new problem: highly motivated, professional soldiers coming back from the war unable to function and the bureaucracy calling it stress,” said Haley. “I was persuaded to get involved by the strength of his careful personal observations. It’s pretty clear now that he was right.”
Perot’s foundation, in fact, helped to fund much of UT’s research.
Haley and other medical experts have often said they believe Gulf War syndrome was caused by exposure to military strength pesticides and toxic chemicals in the Persian Gulf.
Other researchers have speculated that pills containing pyridostigmine bromide, an anti nerve gas agent, could have caused the syndrome.
The new study does not address the cause or causes, but Haley has suggested he and his team may soon do so. “We’re going to show proof of what causes this,” he said. “It will be a huge study with convincing evidence.”
Future action
Veteran groups say the next step is to secure federal funding for research on drugs that might help afflicted veterans.
“Knowing the medical basis for a disease focuses the search for specific treatments and makes it possible to test them in clinical trials,” said Paul Sullivan, a Gulf War vet and head of Veterans for Common Sense.
“If VA continues to be reluctant to fund research, then Congress should hold hearings that prompt VA to do the right thing for our veterans.”
In 2008, a report compiled by the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC-GWVI), established by Congress to provide independent advice to the VA Secretary on Gulf War health research plans, recognized the syndrome as a distinct physical condition and recommended that funding be increased to at least $60 million a year.
At the time it was released, Anthony Hardie, a member of the committee and a member of the advocacy group Veterans of Modern Warfare, said, “The report brings to a close one of the darkest chapters in the legacy of the 1991 Gulf War.
“This is a bittersweet victory, because this is what Gulf War veterans have been saying all along,” he continued. “Years were squandered by the federal government … trying to disprove that anything could be wrong with Gulf War veterans.”
Yet in its latest report, released this summer, the RAC-GWVI slammed research efforts, saying, “Those responsible for VA research fail to mount even a minimally effective program, while promoting the scientifically discredited view that 1991 Gulf War veterans have no special health problem as a result of their service.”
The group also revealed the research budget has been cut by two-thirds for fiscal year 2013, from $15 million to $4.86 million, and of the $15 million budgeted and approved by the Secretary and Congress for fiscal year 2012, only $4.98 million was spent.
“The Committee recommends that the failures and obstructive actions outlined above be
thoroughly investigated to identify the individuals responsible and that appropriate actions be
taken to remove them from positions of authority and influence over Gulf War illness research.
Until this occurs, we see no prospects for meaningful progress in VA Gulf War illness research,” it concluded.
After the report was published, Gulf War vet Maj. Denise Nichols, a retired nurse who has been active in research and advocacy in the areas of Gulf War syndrome and the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam, wrote in Military News Now, “The Gulf War Veterans claims are not being adjudicated in an appropriate and timely manner. … Do not let the abandonment of the Gulf War Veterans of 90-91 go down further the path of the past history of VA’s handling of Agent Orange.”
Vietnam vets began to file disability claims in 1977 for health care for conditions they believed were associated with exposure to the chemical, but their claims were denied unless they could prove the condition began when they were in the service or within one year of their discharge.
By April 1993, the VA had compensated only 486 victims, although it had received disability claims from 39,419 soldiers who had been exposed to Agent Orange during active service.