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Chemicals Blamed for Gulf War Ills

Posted on: Thursday, 19 June 2008, 06:00 CDT

By Dyhouse, Tim

An academic report released in March cites chemicals in pesticides, weapons and drugs used to counter nerve gas as causes of a wide variety of ailments reported by Persian Gulf War veterans. "Enough studies have been conducted and the results shared to be able to say with considerable confidence that there is a link between chemical exposure [and the ailments]," Dr. Beatrice Golomb told the (San Diego) Union-Tribune.

Golomb, an associate professor at the University of California- San Diego, wrote the report, which was published March 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She analyzed findings from more than two dozen studies of U.S., Australian and European Persian Gulf War vets exposed to chemicals such as the nerve agent sarin.

More than one-third of the 700,000 U.S. troops who deployed to the war zone also may have been exposed to pyridostigmine bromide (PB), which is supposed to neutralize the effects of nerve gas. Other possible exposures include pesticides used to kill sand flies in Kuwait and Iraq, and chemicals released when a munitions bunker was blown up in March 1991 at Khamisiyah, Iraq.

An estimated 250,000 Gulf War vets were exposed to PB, 100,000 to nerve agents such as sarin or cyclosarin and 41,000 overexposed to pesticides.

Source: VFW, Veterans of Foreign Wars Magazine

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