Gulf War ills tied to chemical exposure

[The Spartan]

The Link

Gulf War ills tied to chemical exposure
Analysis: Pesticides at root of some veterans’ afflictions
The Associated Press
updated 4:52 p.m. CT, Mon., March. 10, 2008
WASHINGTON - Increasing evidence ties pesticides and other chemicals to some, not all, of the Gulf War illnesses that afflict thousands of veterans of the 1991 war, says an analysis published Monday.

Nearly 30 percent of troops who took part in the brief war have reported symptoms that include fatigue, memory loss, pain and difficulty sleeping. Citing the variety of symptoms, the Institute of Medicine in 2006 declared there is no single Gulf War syndrome, although troops who served in the Persian Gulf were sicker than those who didn’t.

Multiple chemical exposures have long been chief suspects. So Dr. Beatrice Golomb of the University of California, San Diego, reviewed 115 studies of neurological symptoms and veterans’ exposure to three related chemicals: the anti-nerve gas pyridostigmine bromide, or PB, given to troops at the time; pesticides used aggressively to control sand flies; and the nerve gas sarin.

Those chemicals belong to a family known as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors that work the same way in the body, she wrote Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Among the evidence Golomb cites: Veterans who are genetically less able to clear this type of chemical from their bodies had a higher chance of suffering symptoms, which mirror problems reported by pesticide-exposed agriculture workers.

So it seems that low level exposure to mulitple sources has been afflicting numerous soldiers from that war. I had always suspected it was somehow chemically induced but it's hard to nail something down with the variation of symptoms.

I've heard it said that Gulf War Vets have the same instance of these symptoms as civilians/non-Gulf War Vets (not sure if that's held as true anymore) but if it is could it be related to exposure to pesticides, etc. in certain individuals?

[Uraniun235]

I'm not intimately familiar with the details of the Gulf War; when did they get hit with sarin?

[Dartzap]

I'm not intimately familiar with the details of the Gulf War; when did they get hit with sarin?

It wasn't a matter of being hit with it that has concerned people, it was the medication they took beforehand that has generally been the main suspect behind Gulf War Syndrome.

[Shroom Man 777]

Weren't they given unproved drugs to combat nerve gas? I remember that scene in Jarhead where they were forced to sign waivers before swallowing those untested pills.

[The Spartan]

I'm not intimately familiar with the details of the Gulf War; when did they get hit with sarin?

It wasn't a matter of being hit with it that has concerned people, it was the medication they took beforehand that has generally been the main suspect behind Gulf War Syndrome.

Didn't the suspect a release of sarin downwind from a munitions depot that they blew up? Not enough to cause acute symptoms but enough that virtually the entirety of those deployed were exposed to some amount?

[TheMuffinKing]

In addition to previously mentioned causes, I recall a munitions factory being bombed that the Army said manufactured sarin gas shells. IIRC the gas dispersed in low levels over a very wide level.

[TheMuffinKing]

I meant area.

[Sea Skimmer]

Didn't the suspect a release of sarin downwind from a munitions depot that they blew up? Not enough to cause acute symptoms but enough that virtually the entirety of those deployed were exposed to some amount?

Your thinking of the Kamisiyah ammunition depot near An Nasiriyah, which held sarin and possible VX nerve gas, but was blown by US Army engineers who hadn’t been informed to look for it. The demolition was incomplete too (it’s a 20 square mile bunker complex!), and months later UN inspectors found 122mm rockets leaking nerve gas into the sand. This may have exposed 20,000-35,000 soldiers to gas.

A number of other small stockpiles of nerve gas were also destroyed by US troops, but in those cases the engineers usually knew they were dealing with gas and used very large quantities of explosives. Some gas however, would still escape being destroyed. Demolition is simply not a good way of destroying gas but no other option was realistically available and UN inspectors ended up doing the same thing a thousand more times.

Weren't they given unproved drugs to combat nerve gas? I remember that scene in Jarhead where they were forced to sign waivers before swallowing those untested pills.

About 350,000 frontline US troops were put on a seven day regiment Pyridostigmine bromide pills as an antidote to Soman nerve gas. This drug is nothing new, its been known and tested since 1955, however the Gulf War was the first time anything like so many people had actually used it as intended. I don’t know anything about waivers one way or another.

Several other nerve gas antidotes, most commonly atropine were also issued but were only to be used after actual exposure. None the less confusion, false alarms, US Army gas detection gear fucking sucked shit, and other factors caused a number of troops to take them. IIRC we racked up several hundred cases of atropine poisoning as a result.