The aim of this article is to share our experiences from an international collaborative effort to study health outcomes among Saudi Arabian National Guard (SANG) soldiers following the 1991 Gulf War. By paying particular attention to distinct social and religious customs, geopolitical differences, and unique aspects of the health care system, we achieved a successful international collaboration...

Veterans of Operation Desert Storm returned from the Persian Gulf Theater of Operations and developed multiple signs and symptoms characterized by disabling fatigue, arthralgia, intermittent fever, myalgia, impairments in short-term memory, headaches, skin rashes, diarrhea and additional symptoms that have defied a disease case definition but has been called Gulf War Illness (GWI). In a samplin...

The analogy between World War II and the 1991 Persian Gulf crisis led people to construct a coherent system of roles for the participants in the Gulf crisis. The Analogical Constraint Mapping Engine (ACME), a model of analogical mapping by constraint satisfaction (Holyoak & Thagard, 1989), makes predictions about the types of correspondences people are likely to draw between the people and coun...

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...

The Persian Gulf is an important economic and geo-political region. Owing to its oil and gas resources, it is one of the busiest waterways in the world. There are many operating oil wells in the northern part of the Persian Gulf . As a result, the risk of contaminant dispersion is high. The deliberate discharge of 6.3 million barrels of crude oil during the 1991 war against Kuwait in this regio...

The combustion of crude oil produces a wide range of pollutants, including gases, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, acid compounds (e.g., sulfuric acid), and soot. Several of these pollutants have been linked with the deterioration and blackening of monuments. The paper reports the results of an investigation on the causes of the soiling of cultural remains at import...

Biological warfare agents were one of the most feared classes of weapons that coalition troops believed Iraq might use against them. Biologic agents can either be sufficiently toxic that they kill their victims quickly, or they may induce a sufficient degree of acute disability that troops cannot fight effectively or defend themselves against an attack. The Centers for Disease Control and Preve...

Objectives To determine how many veterans in a random sample of British veterans who served in the Gulf war believe they have “Gulf war syndrome,” to examine factors associated with the presence of this belief, and to compare the health status of those who believe they have Gulf war syndrome with those who do not. Design Questionnaire study asking British Gulf war veterans whether they believe ...

Objectives The Gulf War Registry monitors related health conditions of veterans returning from the Persian Gulf Region. Enrollment consists of two phases: Phase I-veterans meet with their local VA Environmental Health Coordinator and complete the self-reported Gulf War Phase I Worksheet (VA Form 10-9009A). Phase II involves a physical exam, medical history review, and laboratory test analysis c...