Gulf War illnesses : improved monitoring of clinical progress and reexamination of research emphasis are needed : report to the Chairmen and Ranking Minority Members of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and the House Committee on National Security / United States General Accounting Office.

  • United States. General Accounting Office
Date:
[1997]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gulf War illnesses : improved monitoring of clinical progress and reexamination of research emphasis are needed : report to the Chairmen and Ranking Minority Members of the Senate Committee on Armed Services and the House Committee on National Security / United States General Accounting Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    B-276835 symptomatic infection with the parasite, the prevalence of asymptomatic infection is unknown, and such infection may reemerge in cases in which the patient’s immune system becomes deficient. However, as the Committee has noted, the infection may remain dormant up to 20 years. Because of this long latency and the lack of widely available screening methods, the infected population is hidden, and because even classic forms of Leishmaniasis are difficult to recognize, we believe that Leishmania should be retained as a potential risk factor for individuals who suffer from immune deficiency. The Committee also concluded that it is unlikely that the health effects reported by many Gulf War veterans were the result of (1) biological warfare agents, (2) chemical warfare agents, (3) depleted uranium, (4) infectious diseases endemic to the region, (5) oil-well fire smoke, (6) pesticides, (7) petroleum products, (8) pyridostigmine bromide, or (9) vaccines. However, our review of the conclusions made by the Committee indicated the following: While the government found no evidence that biological weapons were deployed, during the Gulf War, the United States did not deploy a real-time biological warfare agent detection system during the war, and the effects of one agent, aflatoxin, would not be observed for many years. Evidence from various sources indicates that chemical agents were present at Khamisiyah, Iraq, and elsewhere on the battlefield. The magnitude of the exposure to chemical agents has not been fully resolved. As we have previously noted, “available bomb damage assessments during the war concluded that 16 of 21 sites categorized by Gulf War planners as nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) facilities had been successfully destroyed. However, information compiled by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) since the end of Desert Storm reveals that the number of suspected NBC targets identified by U.S. planners, both prior to and during the campaign, did not fully encompass all the possible NBC targets identified by U.S. planners. UNScoM has conducted investigations at a large number of the facilities suspected by the U.S. authorities as being NBC related. Regarding the few suspected chemical weapon sites that have not yet been inspected by UNSCOM, we have been able to determine that each was attacked by coalition aircraft during Desert Storm and that one site is located within the Kuwait theater of operation in close proximity to the border, where coalition ground forces were located. However, we have yet to learn why these facilities have not been investigated.”® ‘Operation Desert Storm: Evaluation of the Air Campaign (GAO/NSIAD-97-134, June 12, 1997), p. 2.
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