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Gulf War illness - Definition and Overview |
| Related Words: Addiction, Affection, Affliction, Ailment, Allergy, Atrophy, Blight, Bug, Complaint, Complication, Condition, Defect, Deformity, Disability, Disease, Disorder, Distemper |
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- This article or section should be merged with Gulf War syndrome
Hundreds of thousands of veterans of the 1991 Gulf War have experienced undiagnosed illnesses they believe are linked to the war, according to Congress' auditing arm. These ailments include chronic fatigue, loss of muscle control, diarrhea, migraines, dizziness, memory problems and loss of balance. The illnesses are generally referred to as Gulf War Illness.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi's panel found that more recent studies suggest the veterans' illnesses are neurological and apparently are linked to exposure to neurotoxins such as the nerve gas sarin, the anti-nerve gas drug pyridostigmine bromide and pesticides that affect the nervous system.
"Research studies conducted since the war have consistently indicated that psychiatric illness, combat experience or other deployment-related stressors do not explain Gulf War veterans illnesses in the large majority of ill veterans," the review committee said.
Critics of the administration's explainations for the illnesses have suggested that depleted uranium orinance used in the Gulf War may be a cause of unexplained cancer cases. This may explain, for example, unusual cases of rectal cancer reported by soldiers that were sitting, inside Bradley fighting vehicles, on cases of DU-coated canon shells.
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