Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of service people have developed unexplained ailments since returning from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia two years ago. The symptoms–skin rashes, memory loss, along with chronic fevers, aches and fatigue–have grown so familiar they’re now referred to as gulf war syndrome. The military and the Veterans Affairs Department (VA) originally dismissed the soldiers’ complaints, suggesting they’re psychological at root. But the problem is now getting serious attention. A subcommittee of the House Veterans Affairs Committee held an emotional hearing on gulf war syndrome this month. As veterans recounted their shattered lives, many evoking the specter of Agent Orange, military officials promised an all-out assault on the problem. For now, though, no one knows what ails the soldiers, let alone what causes it.
There’s no shortage of possibilities. Researchers are pursuing at least a half-dozen different explanations for the veterans’ misery, but none seems likely to account for all of it. Shortly after the war ended, military doctors discovered that several sick soldiers were infected with Leishmania tropical, a parasite transmitted through the bites of infected sandflies. The parasite, which normally causes only skin lesions, had invaded the soldiers’ bone marrow and internal organs, causing fatigue, fevers, coughs and diarrhea. Researchers at Washington’s Walter Reed Army Medical Center have since confirmed a dozen such cases. But most of the ailing soldiers examined test negative for the parasite. “Some cases of gulf war syndrome may involve Leishmania,” says Dr. Robert Gasser Jr. of the Walter Reed team, “but I’d guess it’s a very small proportion.”
Toxic dust: A second theory holds that the gulf war vets were poisoned by their own high-tech weapons. Some U.S. tanks and artillery shells were coated with depleted uranium (DU), a byproduct of the material that fuels nuclear weapons and power plants. Because DU is so hard, it helps protect tanks from enemy fire, and shells that are coated with the stuff can pierce conventional armor like a knife. As long as it’s intact, DU poses little danger to people. But on impact, it releases fine particles of a substance called uranium oxide, which is both radioactive and chemically toxic. The Defense Department maintains that while 62 soldiers were exposed to uranium oxide dust, none of those examined has shown any symptoms. Veterans’ groups believe that more were exposed, but they can’t prove it.
Uranium isn’t the only toxic substance the troops could have encountered. Some sailors say crude oil from the heavily contaminated gulf got through the distilling systems on their ships and into their water supplies. Infantry soldiers recall finding traces of diesel fuel in their water. (They suspect the same trucks were used to transport both substances.) The war also exposed people to an array of potentially toxic paints and solvents. Of particular concern is a product called CARC (chemical-agentresistant coating), which 180 National Guard troopers spent six months spraying onto military vehicles in Saudi Arabia. In a recent report to Congress, Dr. William Johnson, formerly of the Dwight David Eisenhower Army Medical Center in Fort Gordon, Ga., recounted how the soldiers worked 12-hour days in poorly ventilated maintenance tents. They used no respirators at first, and later received faulty ones. According to Johnson, some inhaled paint until they were literally coughing it up.
Chemical sensitivity: None of these substances is an obvious common denominator, but some experts believe that any of them could help trigger a syndrome called multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), in which heavy exposure to one or more chemicals leaves a person hypersensitive to a range of others. In preliminary tests, Dr. Charles Hinshaw Jr. of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine in Wichita, Kans., has exposed 25 sick soldiers to normally harmless concentrations of alcohol, formaldehyde and phenol. He says every soldier suffered an adverse reaction.
Though no one can yet say whether the gulf war caused all this illness, the government is taking the problem seriously. The VA has set up referral centers to handle unusual medical problems, and it is working with the Defense Department to establish an institute for the study of multiple chemical sensitivity. Besides answering vital questions for the stricken soldiers, the research initiative could help prevent needless injuries in the future. Unfortunately, the answers won’t come quickly. Vietnam veterans lived with the effects of Agent Orange for more than a decade before the VA firmly linked the defoliant to nerve damage and several cancers. The poisons of the Persian Gulf War may someday win similar recognition. But for people like Todd See-29 years old and too sick to work-that’s little comfort today.
