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Depicting brain damage, scans distinguish between a trio of syndromes, researchers say SALT LAKE CITY Nearly two decades after vets began returning from the Middle East complaining of Gulf War Syndrome, the federal government has yet to formally accept that their vague jumble of symptoms constitutes a legitimate illness. Here, at the Society of Toxicology annual meeting, yesterday, researchers rolled out a host of brain images – various types of magnetic-resonance scans and brain-wave measurements – that they say graphically and unambiguously depict Gulf War Syndrome. Or syndromes. Because Robert Haley of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in...

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' cancellation of a $75 million contract with UT Southwestern Medical Center could mean the end to the Dallas university's research into treatments and cures for Gulf War illnesses. UT Southwestern epidemiologist Dr. Robert Haley told The Dallas Morning News that he and a team of 200 colleagues from eight universities are five years ahead of anyone else engaged in the painstaking research into why 200,000 healthy soldiers went to the Persian Gulf in 1990-91 and returned to civilian lives of chronic illness. ... A closer look at the body of research conducted by Haley...

It's been a long time coming for veterans whose health complaints have been met with skepticism, but a federal panel has determined that Gulf War syndrome is not only real, it is tied to two causes: exposure to pyridostigmine bromide and certain pesticides during the 1990–1991 Persian Gulf War. Members of the federal Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses that wrote a 450+ page report also called for research efforts to shift away from establishing the existence of a Gulf War syndrome to focus on treatment and diagnostic tests. “There's no way to say that [Gulf War illness]...

A recent funding increase has resulted in the establishment of research treatment centers and a pilot program that partners VA with a prominent Texas medical center in studying such illnesses. The funding increase for Gulf War illness research, the new research treatment centers and the creation of the pilot program at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas were measures incorporated into the 2006 VA budget by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas). The budget was recently approved by Congress and signed by President Bush. "VA is committed to further investigating the unique health care needs of Gulf War veterans,...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 14 - A federal panel of medical experts studying illnesses among veterans of the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf has broken with several earlier studies and concluded that many suffer from neurological damage caused by exposure to toxic chemicals, rejecting past findings that the ailments resulted mostly from wartime stress. Citing new scientific research on the effects of exposure to low levels of neurotoxins, the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses concludes in its draft report that "a substantial proportion of Gulf War veterans are ill with multisymptom conditions not explained by wartime stress or...

Gulf War illness link to brain damage By Oliver Poole (Filed: 04/08/2004) A scientist whose findings have been supported by the American Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday detailed how some Gulf War veterans complaining of post-conflict illnesses had been found to have brain damage. Robert Haley, from the University of Texas, told the independent Gulf War Illnesses inquiry in London that his findings were the first sign of physical injury associated with the syndrome. Robert Haley His conclusions - which he suggests are due to low-level exposure to nerve agents - paves the way for a medical test which would...

BOSTON (Reuters) - A small group of molecules has been shown to inhibit a deadly toxin associated with inhalational anthrax, a discovery that could lead to new ways of treating the disease, researchers said on Monday. Scientists at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston said the finding may help in the development of a drug that, when combined with antibiotics, could treat inhalational anthrax at a point when antibiotics alone are no longer effective. Inhalational anthrax is the most serious form of the disease and can develop when people breathe in tiny anthrax spores. Another...

EYE ON THE GULF Looming Iraq war divides U.S. vets Group issues veiled call for GIs to refuse call-up Posted: February 13, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern By Diana Lynne © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com As a second war looms in Iraq, some veterans from the Persian Gulf and earlier wars are offering themselves up as "human shields" for Iraqis and urging GIs to "follow your conscience" in obeying the Pentagon call-up in hopes of averting the conflict altogether. A coalition of anti-war veterans organizations called Vets Call to Conscience, or VCC, has mounted a campaign to reach out to active-duty troops and...

Ross Perot convinced Dr. Robert Haley to start studying Gulf War illness in the early 1990s. The Dallas tycoon and former presidential candidate had approached the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where Haley is head of epidemiology, wanting to fund research into the cause of Gulf War illness. An ardent veterans' advocate, Perot steadfastly has disputed scientists' contention that stress is responsible for Gulf War illness. In January 1997, Haley published three papers in the Journal of the American Medical Association describing the results of the Perot-funded research. Haley had done questionnaire surveys in which he asked...