What are the symptoms of this disease?
Since all the evidence suggests that this a fabricated disease/syndrome/condition, any symptom you can think of is a sign of the disease.
Well, I wouldn’t say fabricated. At least not by the veterans themselves. Fabricated by the popular news media, yes.
Gulf War Syndrome, aka Gulf War Illness, seems to have no physical causes. There are certain symptoms - fatigue, soreness, etc., which are common psychomatic responses to stress. After WW2, it was called “shell shock”, after Vietnam it was “post traumatic stress disorder”. The conflict, and its impact on the soldiers’ personal lives, takes its toll. Another significant stressor IMHO is the news media always telling the veterans that they were exposed to something that’s likely to kill them.
Thanks for the response. But why so some veteran’s relatives say that they are also inflicted by the disease?
What, mainstream media influencing people? I never would’ve guessed!
Gulf War Syndrome is what they call a functional somatic syndrome. These are groups of extremely nonspecific and subjective symptoms (fatigue, headache, stomach discomfort, loss of concentration, etc.) that may or may not have an identifiable organic etiology. However, the patient attributes the symptoms to a specific cause, which exacerbates the symptoms.
For example: a Gulf War vet feels tired for a week or so. He’s always heard about that Gulf War Syndrome, so he decides that he has it. He hears on “Dateline NBC” about another symptom that those with GWS have–say, headache–and thinks that, now that he thinks about it, his head has been hurting a little bit for a while. The more he thinks about it, the worse the symptoms get. It’s a positive-feedback loop–a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Other examples of FSS’s include multiple chemical sensitivity, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic Lyme disease, repetitive stress injury, and the side effects of silicone breast implants. Note that some of these (notably IBS) do have identifiable causes, but that doesn’t mean the symptoms are always being ascribed correctly. For instance, say a woman convinces herself she has IBS. Whether she has it or not, her belief that she has it makes the symptoms worse. It’s like denial in reverse.
Not surprisingly, these tend to be syndromes that get considerable media attention, and they increase in incidence following big episodes of media attention. They also tend to increase when someone has a vested interest, such as litigation or alternative treatments.
Most people don’t seem to think there’s any pathologic entity that causes Gulf War Syndrome, although the jury is not quite back in yet. Even so, people who have convinced themselves that they have it might as well have it.
This came from a great article in the Annals of Internal Medicine. I hope I haven’t bored anyone–this is exactly the sort of thing that fascinates me to no end. (And to think there are people in my class who want to be surgeons and gynecologists. Psychiatry is where it’s at!)
Dr. J
Gulf War Syndrome is the result of the crappy rations our boys got over there. Namely, everything they ate included two ingredients: Oil and sand. “Come get your chicken a la oil with a side of steamed sand!”
Anyway, I’m surprised that this hasn’t brought up. The “official” cause of GWS given by the media is that our soldiers were exposed to some nerve agent from Saddam’s arsenal of chemical weapons. And we all know how skilled a doctor Dan Rather is, to make such an announcement.
Anyway, parts of it is probably post-trauma, parts are probably the bad food, parts could even be chemical agents… hell, some people were probably just airsick. But “Gulf War Syndrome” is a catchy name. You know, now that I think of it, I’ve got a bit of a headache…
I am skeptical of anything with the appellation “syndrome”.
Let’s face it. Any one of us, if we thought hard enough about it, could come up with a series of vague physical complaints that are afflicting us at any given time. Now put us all in a group study, and if any of those complaints are overlapping, voilá! We now have Straight Dope Message Board Syndrome! We’re all members of the SDMB, right? And because at least some of us share similar complaints, our ailments must therefore be causally connected to our membership in SDMB, right?
Cecil, prepare yourself for the forthcoming class action suit!
(I see a government grant in my future…)
Possible causes of GWS: 1. Anthrax vaccinations
2. Other experimental drugs
3. Oil field fire smoke
4. Up to a year in primative, hot, living conditions just playing hell with the body.
5. Radiation from depleted uranium rounds
6. Radiation from chemical detectors.
7. Parasites
8. Any disease unrelated to anything that happened in the war but didn’t manifest itself until shortly afterwards.
9. Psychosomatic illnesses resulting from knowledge of any or all of the above.
And that’s what makes it a “syndrome” Any on the list (and some others I’m sure I’ve neglected) could conceivably cause deterioration of health. It would be difficult to isolate which was affecting whom, and how, especially as most of us over there were near several of the above. Personally I had to deal with numbers 3-7 inclusive. Maybe # 2 as well, I don’t even know what shots I may have gotten. I do not have GWS. I do have a completely different syndrome that certainly does carry some of the symptoms. In my case, it was pre-existing and genetic, so I know the source. Otherwise, if it had gotten aggravated after the war, I might well have attributed it to GWS. Undoubtably, many soldiers, seamen, airmen had their health get worse after the war, but finding a specific cause, or even directly relating it to the war, is difficult.
pinqy
Just to chime in;
I’m a Gulf War vet, and I’m very cynical about the whole syndrome thing. I seem to recall a study showing that the presence of symptoms in non-deployed military was not statistically different from symptoms reported in troops stationed in the Gulf To me, that suggests stress as a factor, if anything. Not some cause such as parasites, oil smoke, or anything else specific to the Gulf region.
I’ve seen stress manifest itself in all sorts of physical ways. Not in me, but in several people close to me.
In my more cynical moods, I see people claiming “Gulf War Syndrome” as looking to hit the government up for a quick buck.
Being a Gulf War Vet, I have to agree with Pinqy and Divemaster. I was exposed to #s 1, 2, 4 & 5 from Pinqy’s list (although I’m skeptical of #5; I placed a spare Dossimeter into my tank’s ammo compartment and it never even twitched after 7 months exposure to DU rounds, and our 54-series folks’ 'counters never picked up more than normal background radiation during surveys of shot-up Iraqi tanks), with a possible on #7, and I think we’re all possibles on #8 (like, if I contract a liver disease somewheres down the road, should I attribute it to GWS?).
Oh well, if it ain’t one thing, it’s another.
ExTank
The Army has now made dealing with DU exposure part of the CTT tasks. Apparantly you have to really muck with it for any trouble and treatment is just to wash. In my case, though, after the war, the glorious 11ACR managed to accidentally blow up the entire ammo dump. 1st Squadron was in the field, and I’m not sure how much ammo they had with them, but it was still a large number of DU rounds exploding in one place at the same time. No idea if there was any real danger from radiation; the levels are way low, but it’s still a minor hazard. (oh, and it was the gun-bunnies, not the DAT’s who caused the explosion)
pinqy
Gulf War Syndrome is psychosomatic? Bah. That’s just what the Bavarian Illuminati wants you to believe! When they release Gulf War Syndrome Virus Mark II into the water supply of every major city on Earth, don’t come crawlin’ to me!
– tracer, adjusting his tinfoil hat to better repel their mind control rays.
This site has a lot of information.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/syndrome/
The Department of Veteran Affairs is currently paying compensation to certain veterans who have been given a rating for “Undiagnosed Disabilities”, which is another way of saying “Gulf War Syndrome”. I personally know of one vet who died from these conditions.
There are no definite answers, but you have to give the Government credit for not turning their back like they did for so many years to those suffering from conditions caused from exposure to Agent Orange.
Whooops, I see these words so many times through out my work day you would think I would get them correct. Make that “Undiagnosed Illness”.
Not that it makes a big difference, but I am a little anal.
An excellent resource for info on GWS is Michael Fumento’s site. You can see all his GWS stories at http://www.fumento.com/sugulf.html .
Diane wrote:
Died from an undiagnosed disability? Your acquaintance needed a better doctor.
Yes, the government learned about its PR mistakes with Agent Orange, despite the lack of evidence that it ever caused any problems. In-depth studies of the soldiers most heavily exposed to Agent Orange, the ground crews of Operation Ranch Hand who loaded it onto the planes, has consistently shown no adverse health effects. A recent study claimed to link it to adult onset diabetes, but it had a big flaw - the dioxin in Agent Orange is contained in fat in the body, so obese people have more of it. The study measured the amount of dioxin in peoples’ bodies, and correlated that to a 47% increase in adult-onset diabetes. The problem is that there is one risk factor known to be associated with diabetes, and that’s obesity. So they reported a statistically insignificant 1.47 relative risk with dioxin, in the presence of a huge confounding variable, while epidemiologists routinely ignore relative risks of less than 2.0 because of unknown bias or confounding variables. This is suspect, to say the least. And as the study authors note, this is the strongest link we have to Agent Orange and any adverse health effects.
You can read Michael Fumento’s article on this at http://www.fumento.com/reasonagent.html .
I am a counselor for disabled veterans. As I stated, the VA recognizes certain veterans as suffering from “Undiagnosed Illness” from service in the Gulf and are paying compensation to these individuals. Yes, I do know of a veteran who was receiving compensation for undiagnosed illness and died. His death is considered service connected.
I would like to see a specific Government cite, as I find the opposite to be true in handling my own clientele.
The Department of Veteran Affairs currently DO NOT recognize adult-diabetes as a disability caused from exposure to Agent Orange.
I suggest you research beyond this author. There have been many years of studies that link exposure to Agent Orange to the current recognized service connected disabilities. This is far from the strongest link between exposure and heath problems.
I mentioned a study in my earlier post, and I think I may have found the reference in the link CurtC provided. (The January 7, 2000 Fumento article). He says:
Of course, this doesn’t rule out stress. I guess a case could be made that being in the military during wartime causes enough stress to produce phsically manifested symptoms, regardless of deployment status. However, if this is the case, “Gulf War Syndrome” is a misnomer.
I’m pretty familiar with the studies that have been done, and with the political history. Near the end of the Vietnam conflict, it was discovered that Agent Orange contained miniscule amounts of dioxin, and that causes health problems in lab rodents.
Through the 1970s, Vietnam vets were complaining of vague symptoms, just like with Gulf War Syndrome. News reporters would do stories about sick vets, and of children of vets born with birth defects. They didn’t check whether there were just as many non-vets who were sick.
Public pressure mounted for the government to do something, so they commissioned studies by the CDCin 1979. The CDC found nothing, therefore the vets groups accused the government of covering it up. So congress got the Institute of Medicine to look again. The IOM then sliced and diced the data so that there were bound to be just-by-chance associations appear. Never mind that these correlations had never been seen in studies of much larger populations more heavily exposed to dioxin. The politicians needed a positive correlation, so they could get the vets groups off their backs.
By the way, only Operation Ranch Hand ground crews show elevated levels of dioxin. There is no evidence that any other veterans were ever exposed to Agent Orange, and dioxin levels in their blood is comparable to yours and mine.
But there are constituencies who demand that Agent Orange be blamed for some kind of illness. There are no constituencies on the other side.
If you don’t like Michael Fumento, you can also read Michael Gough:
You know, I was in Desert Shield/Desert Storm for about eight months. In the last couple of years, I’ve packed on 40 pounds (I’m only 165 now, so I used to be purty darned skinny) and my hair has fallen out at a tremendous rate! Now that I think of it, I have had lots of headaches, occasional diarrhea, and even vomited since the Gulf War. Maybe I’ve got it too!
I realize that those folks suffering from the symptoms attributed to GWS are indeed in pain. I also realize that they in all likelihood truly believe that it stems from their time over there. However, some people think that alien implants are the cause of their health troubles, or a misalignment in their chi flow. As far as GWS goes, the evidence supporting its being anything other than psychosomatic is painfully thin, and many would say nonexistant.
The chain of logic that runs “I was in the Gulf, and now I feel bad, therefore the cause is the Gulf War,” is simply insufficient. However, the media played GWS up enough before any real scientific investigation was done that its existence is firmly planted in the public’s mind. Ironically fitting in a way, because the evidence so far points to that as the source.
The government is in a bad spot with GWS. The evidence suggests that it doesn’t really exist (as in being caused by any identifiable outside factor) but they don’t dare treat it that way for PR reasons. They did do so early on IIRC, and had to reverse themselves due to a storm of indignation by those that felt Uncle Sam was turning its back on some of “our boys” that it had made sick. Now the prevailing attitude that I seem to hear is “Well, we haven’t found anything yet, but we’re working on it.”
The question is, how long will the US keep working on a problem that most medical investigators say is nonexistant? If the GWS sufferers are suffering from psychosomatic ills, isn’t it a disservice to them to pretend otherwise and search for a mysterious causative agent? Shouldn’t they receive counseling and treatment for the disorders we are pretty sure they do have rather than treat GWS as a legitimate complaint?
I’m not saying that some agent will not be found in the future mind you, and I’m not saying that it decidedly is psychosomatic in nature, just that the evidence we currently have points towards this as the nature of the beast. Despite this, most of what I see and hear reported presumes GWS is an actual illness caused by some unidentified vector. In doing so, it seems to me that the real problems people have are being ignored.