Chemical Exposure Cited in Gulf War Vets’ Ailments

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Chemical Exposure Cited in Gulf War Vets’ Ailments
UCSD study sees tie to high illness rate
by Cheryl Clark


SAN DIEGO - A class of chemicals that includes nerve agents, pesticides and a drug to counter nerve gas may be causing the chronic fatigue, severe muscle pain and other illnesses that about 250,000 Persian Gulf War veterans are experiencing, a San Diego researcher said yesterday.


“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 those ailments, said Dr. Beatrice Golomb, the report’s author and an associate professor at the UCSD School of Medicine.

Her research was published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Golomb said the veterans’ vulnerability to such symptoms might be amplified by genetic mutations that reduced their ability to process pyridostigmine bromide, or PB, a drug intended to neutralize or suppress the effects of nerve agents other than soman.

She made a similar assertion in 1999, and the military now tells troops to take PB pills only when they suspect an attack using soman.

“It doesn’t matter whether they were exposed to the pills, the nerve agent itself or the pesticides. People with any of these exposures showed increased rates of health problems,” Golomb said.

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http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/11/7605/