The Pentagon has finally confirmed at least one disease scientifically linked to Gulf War service — Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The study compared nearly 700,000 military personnel who served in the Gulf War between August 1990 and July 1991 with another 1.8 million personnel who were not deployed to the region. It found that those who were deployed were nearly twice as likely to develop amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a fatal neurological disorder often called Lou Gehrig’s disease.
[…] The rate was not uniform among all personnel. Those who served in the Air Force were 2.7 times as likely to contract the disease, and those in the Army were twice as likely. Disease rates among Marine and Navy veterans were not statistically different from personnel not in the Gulf.
No specific cause has been identified, but there have been claims for years that exposure in the Gulf to everything from oil field fires to nerve gas to depleted uranium rounds was responsible for reported illnesses. The Pentagon has previously dismissed other studies which have claimed to find links to other diseases and conditions, particularly since any sort of causality has been difficult to establish.
(Via NextDraft)