Funding Continues for Illness Scientists Dismiss (Gulf War Syndrome)

Washington Post ^ | December 3, 2006 | David Brown

[Zakeet]

Fifteen years after the end of the 1991 war with Iraq, a Texas researcher is in line to get as much as $75 million in federal funding to press his studies of "Gulf War syndrome," even though most other scientists long ago discounted his theories.

Epidemiologist Robert W. Haley has been trying for 10 years to prove that thousands of Persian Gulf War troops were poisoned by a combination of nerve gas, pesticides, insect repellents and a nerve-gas antidote. With the help of $16 million in past funding obtained by his backers in Congress and the Pentagon, Haley has argued that his "toxicity hypothesis" is the best explanation for the constellation of physical complaints that many veterans reported after returning from the Gulf.

Haley and his supporters, who also include a powerful cluster of veterans and government advisers, are undeterred by the scientific consensus against him.

As recently as September, a panel of the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine reached the same conclusion that half a dozen other expert groups had: Gulf War syndrome does not exist. After reviewing 850 studies -- essentially all the scientific literature on the topic -- the 13 scientists wrote that "the nature of the symptoms suffered by many Gulf War veterans does not point to an obvious diagnosis, etiology [cause], or standard treatment."

[PAR35]

After getting by on only $160,000 a year, now he's won the lottery.

[AmeriBrit]

boolmark

[Global2010]

I only read the headline not the article.

My response which continues to go unanswered over the years...
If Gulf War illness is only a syndrome then why does the Portland Oregon VA Hosp have a whole Floor/Ward visibly named Gulf War Illness care or close to that.....not syndrome.

God Bless the Troops World Wide Protecting our Free Will to Love God in America and Live without being tread upon.

[marktwain]

"My response which continues to go unanswered over the years...
If Gulf War illness is only a syndrome then why does the Portland Oregon VA Hosp have a whole Floor/Ward visibly named Gulf War Illness care or close to that.....not syndrome."

Because the desire to blame something is very powerful, as is the desire to *believe* in spite of all the scientific evidence to the contrary. Gulf War illness is a powerful, satisfying myth. Human psychology is oriented toward accepting anecdotal and episodic experiences as evidence, he have a bias toward drawing unwarranted conclusions. We used to believe that illnesses were caused by being cursed. Now we have "Gulf War illness" instead. It is a very satisfying belief that gives us a cause to pin our troubles on, because there is a very strong human need to find an identifiable *reason* for them.

There is a lot of randomness in the universe.

[q_an_a]

You sir have the same opinion that I have on this matter. Dr. Haley has reported some very odd symptons of the poor men and women who served in Gulf I. I am well aware of the strange goings on in medical research funding but Dr. Haley has a long history of being one of the good guys, with a strong ethical history and a concern for veterans. Let's remember that his friend is Senator Hutchinson and that Ft. Hood is a big part of the military and Texas.

[Strategerist]

If Gulf War illness is only a syndrome then why does the Portland Oregon VA Hosp have a whole Floor/Ward visibly named Gulf War Illness care or close to that.....not syndrome.

Take any group of 500,000 people, and some number of them will have weird, unexplained illnesses - 500,000 schoolteachers, 500,000 accountants - and 500,000 GW veterans. Heck, I know people with weird, unexplained illnesses, and they've never been near the Persian Gulf.

However what repeatedly happens is you find that the GW veterans don't have a rate of any more of those illnesses than other people.

[Global2010]

Or perhaps they can fund that wing if it has a cause.

Regardless of truth.