• Listen to this segment

GUEST: Dr. Beatrice Golomb, an associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego and the author of the study on Gulf War Syndrome

Hundreds of thousands of veterans from the 1991 Gulf War have suffered for years from a mysterious and complex illness that has been named Gulf War Syndrome. A wide-ranging set of symptoms include chronic fatigue, loss of muscle control, headaches, dizziness and loss of balance, memory problems, muscle and joint pain, indigestion, skin problems and more. Over the years, a number of explanations have been put forward including depleted uranium weapons, pollution from burning oil wells, and the anthrax vaccine. In 2006, a federally funded study concluded that there was no such thing as Gulf War Syndrome – meaning that there is no one complex of symptoms to suggest those veterans suffered or still suffer from a single identifiable syndrome. But now, a review of medical studies on Gulf War syndrome released earlier this week supports the theory that the illness was caused by a group of related chemicals found in pesticides used around military facilities and anti-nerve-gas pills given to soldiers. A similar chemical was also found in nerve gas released when American soldiers destroyed a munitions depot just after the 1991 war in Iraq.