Military nursing service during wartime represents significant contributions to a unique type of health care. The purposes of this study were to: (1) generate themes that elucidate combat nursing experiences, (2) honor nurses who served by sharing their stories, and (3) permanently archive accounts of nursing personnel who served during the Persian Gulf Wars during the late 20th and early 21st ...

Before these Marines arrived in Southwest Asia for the Persian Gulf War, an impressive amount of planning and coordination had been done by preventive medicine professionals on their behalf. The health threats facing these Marines had been assessed, plans had been made to counteract those threats, and systems had been put into place to monitor their health status during and after the deployment...

Laos is a small country about the size of Utah. A Lao physician jokingly told me with a sad smile that "Americans thought Laos was a part of Vietnam during the war." The war in Laos was, however, an intentional secret war. The number of bombs dropped during the Vietnam War was greater than the bombs dropped in Europe during World War II. This bombing, which left an enormous number ofUXOs (unexp...

Poor performance on tasks requiring response inhibition has been observed among chronically ill veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Semantic difficulties have also been reported. We collected event-related potential (ERP) and behavioral data from 25 Gulf War veterans who complained of cognitive difficulties and from 23 matched controls, who were deployed but not symptomatic, while they perfo...

We investigated the association of 15 exposures, 10 stressors, and 18 life events with illness symptoms reported by 978 veterans who believe they suffer from Gulf War-related illnesses. A mail survey was completed by veterans (60% response rate) from the Gulf War Health Registry. Variables most associated with high symptom group membership were reported chemical/biologic warfare (CBW), concerns...

BACKGROUND Gulf war veterans report more symptomatic ill-health than other military controls, and skin disease is one of the most frequent reasons for military personnel to seek medical care. AIM To compare the nature and prevalence of skin disease in UK Gulf veterans with non-Gulf veterans, and to assess whether skin disease is associated with disability. DESIGN Prospective case comparison...

This report describes the principal methods used in the development, conduct, and analysis of the research study "Health Assessment of Persian Gulf War Veterans from Iowa" (Iowa Gulf War Study). The methods presented include an outline of the organizational structure, study timeline, hypotheses, outcome definitions, and study design. Adhering to a strict timeline, the study protocol and instrum...

Over the past two decades, 12 large epidemiologic studies and 2 registries have focused on U.S. veterans of the 1990-1991 Gulf War Era. We conducted a review of these studies' research tools to identify existing gaps and overlaps of efforts to date, and to advance development of the next generation of Gulf War Era survey tools. Overall, we found that many of the studies used similar instruments...

Using a random sample of more than 4000 veterans, we test the effects of combat exposure on mental health. We focus on two cohorts of veterans: those who served in Vietnam (1964-1975) and the Gulf War (1990-1991). Combat exposure differed between these groups in intensity, duration and elapsed time since exposure. We find that combat exposure generally, and exposure to dead, dying, or wounded p...

Gulf War Syndrome (GWS) is a multisystemic illness afflicting many Gulf War-era veterans. The molecular pathological basis for GWS has not been established. We sought to determine whether the presence of antibodies to squalene correlates with the presence of signs and symptoms of GWS. Participants in this blinded cohort study were individuals immunized for service in Desert Shield/Desert Storm ...