Persian Gulf Syndrome

Hollander DH Beef allergy and the Persian Gulf syndrome. Med Hypotheses 45 221-... 

Korenyi-Both A, Juncer DJ Al Eskan disease Persian Gulf syndrome. Mil Med 162 1-13,1997... 

Institute of Medicine, Committee on the DoD Persian Gulf Syndrome Comprehensive Clinical Evaluation Program. Evaluation of the U.S. Department of Defense Persian Gulf Syndrome Comprehensive Clinical Evaluation Program, Committee on the DoD Persian Gulf Comprehensive Clinical Evaluation, National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 1996. 

Did you know that a substance originally used in pet flea collars and the fly killer once dangling in the nursery is a sarin-like nerve gas Indeed, the flea collar that your kids mbbed when they petted the family dog was once blamed by the military as the cause of the Persian Gulf Syndrome because the soldiers also wore flea collars. Therefore, this book may be useful to government regulators when deciding whether or not to approve a new pesticide, food additive, fertilizer, or other substance. 

Margit L. Bleecker is director of the Center for Occupational and Environmental Neurology in Baltimore, Maiyland. Her research interests are in clinical industrial neurotoxicology and occupational neurology. Dr. Bleecker was a member of the National Research Council Committee on Tetrachloroethylene and the Institute of Medicine Committee to Review the Health Effects in Vietnam Veterans of Exposure to Herbicides and Committee on the DOD Persian Gulf Syndrome Comprehensive Clinical Evaluation Program. She received her PhD from the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center and her MD from the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. Dr. Bleecker is certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. 

Gulf war syndrome (GWS) is the name given to a variety of psychological and physical symptoms suffered by veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The symptoms have been remarkably wide-ranging, sometimes somewhat ill-defined. These symptoms were inteipreted to reflect exposure to centrally acting anti-AChEs. 

Mackness, B., Durrington, P.N., Mackness, M.I. (2000). Low paraoxonase in Persian Gulf War veterans self-reporting Gulf War syndrome. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 276 729-33. 

Doebbeling B, Clarke W, Watson, D et al. (2000). Is there a Persian Gulf War syndrome Evidence from a large population-based survey of veterans and nondeployed controls. Am J Med, 108, 695-704. 

K. Hyams, F. Wignall, R. Roswell. War Syndromes and Their Evaluation from the U.S. Civil War Through the Persian Gulf War. Annals Internal Medicine, 125 398-405,1996. 

The editors of the Textbook of Military Medicine are mindful that some veterans of the Persian Gulf War (1990-1991) face continuing health problems. Although readers might have hoped to find a discussion in this textbook devoted to the illness known as Gulf War syndrome, the medical aftermath of that war is incompletely understood. A formal academic treatment now would not only be premature, it would soon be outdated. 

After the war, however, allegations of chemical and biological exposures began to surface. Initially, the department of defense denied that any chemical and biological exposures had taken place. Veterans of the war claimed the opposite, and their ailments collectively became known as Gulf War Syndrome. By 1996, newspapers reported that almost 60,000 veterans of the Persian Gulf War claimed some sort of medical problems directly related to their war activities. Extensive research by the department of defense failed to find any single cause for the problems.233,234... 

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