Gulf War Illnesses: Role of Chemical, Radiological and Biological Exposures

Gulf War Syndrome and Gulf War Illnesses (GWI) are terms that have been used to describe a collection of chronic signs and symptoms reported by U.S., British, Canadian, Czech, Danish, Saudi, Egyptian, Syrian, Moroccan and other Coalition Armed Forces that were deployed to Operation Desert Storm (ODS) in 1991. Over 100,000 American veterans of Desert Storm/Shield (approximately 15% of deployed U. S. Armed Forces) returned from the Persian Gulf and slowly (6-24 months or more) presented with a variety of complex signs and symptoms characterized by disabling fatigue, intermittent fevers, night sweats, arthralgia, myalgia, impairments in short-term memory, headaches, skin rashes, intermittent diarrhea, abdominal bloating, chronic bronchitis, photophobia, confusion, transient visual scotomata, irritability and depression and other signs and symptoms that until recently have defied appropriate diagnoses (1-3). These symptoms are not localized to any one organ, and the signs and symptoms and routine laboratory test results are not consistent with a single, specific disease (1). The signs and symptoms of GWI have been reported by 27/28 of the Coalition Armed Forces that were deployed against Iraqi units in Kuwait and Southern Iraq. The only exception is France. This brief review will summarize some of the possible exposures that occurred, the types of illnesses that resulted from these exposures, and some of the treatments that have been used on GWI patients. Because of space limitations, these topics cannot be discussed in detail. Instead, they are summarized along with a few references that should be useful.