BACKGROUND A case definition of Gulf War illness with 3 primary variants, previously developed by factor analysis of symptoms in a US Navy construction battalion and validated in clinic veterans, identified ill veterans with objective abnormalities of brain function. This study tests prestated hypotheses of its external validity. METHODS A stratified probability sample (n = 8,020), selected f...

the first season of survey at qeshm, carried out during the winter of 2006, resulted in the identification of nine sites from the parthian and sasanian periods. the surface pottery from these sites suggests their trade and cultural relations with contemporary sites in the southern persian gulf and other areas. for instance, the parthian and sasanian glazed types in qeshm island are closely re...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0184832.].

Despite over US $200 million having been spent researching illnesses following the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War, the nature and cause of such illnesses remains controversial. In this narrative review, we discuss some of the methodological issues that have affected epidemiological studies on this topic. These include low-response rates, ascertainment bias, recall bias, problems identifying suitable ...

In this context, the continued use of the word 'accident' causes me concern. Sir Francis Bacon wrote 'For men converse by means of language, but words are imposed according to the understanding of the crowd; and there arises from a bad and inapt formation of words a wonderful obstruction to the mind'. So I believe it is with the inapt word 'accident'. To 'the crowd' the word implies some sort o...

The symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) closely correspond to the physiological and behavioural sequelae of an interleukin-1 (IL-1) mediated sickness response. We propose that this response can account for the variability in its symptomatology. Furthermore, the persistence of GWS can be accounted for by an associative process, whereby the smells/tastes of war become linked with the physiologica...

Beaked whales are deep diving elusive animals, difficult to census with conventional visual surveys. Methods are presented for the density estimation of beaked whales, using passive acoustic monitoring data collected at sites in the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) from the period during and following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (2010-2013). Beaked whale species detected include: Gervais' (Mesoplodon e...

From May 19 to May 21, 2010, the Armed Forced Health Surveillance Center and the Uniformed Services University cosponsored an educational symposium and workshop on the assessment of potentially hazardous environmental exposures among military populations. Symposium participants reviewed and analyzed historical exposure events, from herbicides in Vietnam to the 1991 Gulf War oil well fires and W...

To the Editor: In “Reemergence of Plasmodium vivax malaria in the Republic of Korea” (1), the term eradication was, in my judgment, inappropriately used. In 1981, Yekutiel proposed that eradication is “The purposeful reduction of specific disease prevalence to the point of continued absence of transmission within a specified area by means of a time limited campaign” (2). In 1984, Hinman propose...