Pray for America.

Demand these gulf war vets be taken care of properly for their gulf war related deseases and ailments and demand Congress have hearings and investigations to determine what/who caused these deseases. And these vets who served their country when called upon and the American people deserve a full accounting and apology for the government's repeated and long standing coverup of the Gulf War syndrome and all the problems vets have suffered as a result of not being fully treated and thus mentally mistreated.

bump

Bump from a GWV.

The costs of war do seem to have a long tail on them, but this "link" between ALS ("Lou Gehrig Disease) and the Gulf War is very weak. "Twice as likely as other military personnel to develop Lou Gehrig's disease" sounds like something significant until you realize they're just talking about an increase from 3.5 to 6.7 per million soldiers. That's such a small increase that it could well be attributed to the stress of war in general rather than anything particular to the Gulf War.

The study compared nearly 700,000 military personnel who served in the Gulf war between August 1990 and July 1991 with 1.8 million personnel who were not deployed to the region. It found that those who were deployed to the Gulf were nearly twice as likely to develop amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a fatal neurological disorder often called Lou Gehrig's disease.

Among Gulf war veterans, the rate of disease was 6.7 persons per million. Among other military personnel, it was 3.5 per million.

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.

This is junk science of the highest order.

They found 5 ALS cases among Gulf personnel, and 7 cases among non-Gulf military. Is there a scientist in the house? Does anyone have the concept of too-small sample size leading to statistically insignificant results?! (A statistician can calculate the odds that this difference was due to random chance. In this case, it feels about 99% likely that the disparity was due to random chance.)

This as stupid as finding that 4 people died last year from lightning strikes while wearing blue shirts, and 2 died while wearing red shirts, and concluding that wearing a blue shirt doubles your risk of getting killed by lightning! If there were hundreds of such lightning strikes, and they were disproportionately affecting blue-shirted people, we might start to take notice.

Here is a story that will show you of what (civilized & modern)government is capable of

(Horrific Govt Evil)Porton Down Probe Launched (20,000 Biological& Chemical Weapons HumanGuineaPigs)

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Some Previous FreeRepublic Threads on Gulf War Syndrome/Illness:

For some Delaware veterans, Gulf War Illness...10 years later (Gulf War Vigil Tonight @DE Capital)

Secret Gulf War Syndrome Documents Destroyed In Oklahoma City Blast

Report Says Gas Could Have Role In Gulf War Ills

Gee! I guess those Gulf War Vets weren't faking it after all!

GERM WARFARE AGAINST AMERICA: PART I - WHAT IS GULF WAR ILLNESS (GWI)?

The results released yesterday have not yet been reviewed by other scientists or published in an academic journal, but officials said they were releasing them to prevent further delay in compensating victims of the progressive, fatal disease.

Junk Science red flags waving and klaxons shrieking!

All the Gulf War Vets and the experts are just imagining it huh?
The vets aren't really sick are they?<

Is the Rand Corp a junk Science Outfit too???
New Study Probes Link Between Gas Exposures and Gulf War Illnesses

Among Gulf war veterans, the rate of disease was 6.7 persons per million. Among other military personnel, it was 3.5 per million. 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.

This makes no sense. How many MILLION Air Force and Army were in the Persian Gulf? You can't get statistical significance with 3 cases versus 7 cases.

Junk Science red flags waving and klaxons shrieking!
BeelzebubbaDo

Do you really think anyone pays any attention to your screaming out of your jibberish in protest of facts that you don't like people seeing?

You picked a good name for posting such jibberish.

Maybe you should try some other communist dialectic techniques. Let me see is I can find the thread for you....

apology for the government's repeated and long standing coverup of the Gulf War syndrome and all the problems vets have suffered as a result of not being fully treated and thus mentally mistreated.

There's no government coverup of GWS...actually, the government is FABRICATING bogus GWS research like this ALS study because they've come under such congressional pressure to "find something."

This is a desperately awkward issue because people (including me) like and respect veterans. And it is political suicide to go against ANY "veterans issue." But all the really large, reputable studies find no greater incidence of various diseases, etc. among GW vets compared to other vets. There's no higher incidence of birth defects among children of Gulf War vets and non-gulf war vets. There are actually diseases that are LESS common among gulf war vets compared to vets that didn't go to the Gulf.

The media buries massive studies of hundreds of thousands of people published in major medical journals on page 40 of the newspaper...if it finds that a given disease isn't more common among Gulf War vets.

But a tiny study, or one that is totally unpublished, finding ANY increased incidence of ANYTHING in Gulf War vets is on page one, it's leading off the nightly news, etc.

But Congress doesn't want to hear that GWS isn't real, and the media certainly doesn't want to hear that GWS isn't real.

Are there sick vets? of course. Take any 700,000 people and some of them will get weird, horrible diseases..whether they went to the Gulf or not. But putting feature stories on TV about them isn't science. So that's one component of GWS. Another component is Mass Sociogenic Illness...which basically means people MAKING themselves sick...they can display REAL symptoms..but it isn't "real." It doesn't mean they are crazy, either. But the media contributes to that, too. One sign that a lot of GWS is MSI is the British study that found that it spread by "line of sight"..that is, if you know a GW vet that is sick, and see them sick, you are more likely to develop GWS "symptoms." (Which include every malady known to man."

"(A statistician can calculate the odds that this difference was due to random chance. In this case, it feels about 99% likely that the disparity was due to random chance.)"

The appropriate test is Chi Square. All other things being equal, the odds are about 5 to 1 that Gulf War veterans do have a higher rate of ALS.

That doesn't constitute a smoking gun, but it's certainly enough to warrant further investigation.

More Previous FreeRepublic Threads Related To Gulf War Syndrome:

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Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses: VA, DoD Continue to Resist Evidence Linking Toxic Causes

V.A.. Gives Medical Records to FBI for Gun Confiscation

Gulf War Vet Alert - DOD Information Dump (My Title)

HOW THE ANTHRAX VACCINE RUINED MY LIFE
Air Force Times Magazine

Thousands of Gulf Veterans are Dying

Bio/Chem Preparations: Overview

I think you are way wrong on the chi-square and 5 to one odds that the result is significant. A difference of a couple from what is expected over millions is not in that territory at all.

All the Gulf War Vets and the experts are just imagining it huh? The vets aren't really sick are they?

No, many ARE sick, just as many who never served are sick. The Gulf War did not confer immunity to disease. Nor did it guarantee aganst the random chance that five who served would come down with a rare disease, when only three would have been expected to under random chance.

But somehow, our leaders would rather spend the bucks now, before the report has received the slightest scientific review.

Thanks for the flag- it reminded me I had planned on using this story to post this:

Gulf War Syndrome- Where there's smoke, *is* there fire?

Thankyou!

Well, thanks for the flag, which nudged me to post the thing- been sitting on it for weeks.

Thanks for the links. As good as it is that they have acknowledged problem, that disease cannot be cured. My friend's dad died from it, and it was very tragic.

If you roll the dice enough times you are sure to get boxcars. If you check enough possible associations you are sure to find a statistical association with something. I don't know which possibilities they checked, but if they checked for associations with all significant diagnoses at least as common as the normally very rare ALS they rolled a lot of dice.