NAS Report on Veterans' Health

A major question has existed for some time regarding a less overt consequence of war: the potential long-term health risks that combat can pose for soldiers. In 2006, a research committee at the Institute of Medicine, a part of the National Academies, found that veterans who'd served in the 1991 Gulf War exhibited higher incidences of brain and testicular cancer, neurological diseases like Parkinson’s, birth defects, postdeployment psychiatric conditions, and others.

The committee was tasked with updating that report last year and recently released the results of the update, titled Gulf War and Health: Volume 8. Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War and available for free download here. The Institute's press release on the report provides a useful summary of findings:

Military service in the Persian Gulf War is a cause of post-traumatic stress disorder in some veterans and is also associated with multisymptom illness; gastrointestinal disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome; substance abuse, particularly alcoholism; and psychiatric problems such as anxiety disorder, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine, the latest update in a series of reports on the Gulf War and veterans' health. There is some evidence that service during the conflict is linked to fibromyalgia and chronic widespread pain, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, sexual difficulties, and death due to causes such as car accidents in the early years after deployment, but the data are limited, said the committee that wrote the report.

The Institute of Medicine also provided a set of recommendations:

The report calls for a substantial commitment to improve identification and treatment of multisymptom illness in Gulf War veterans. The path forward should include continued monitoring of Gulf War veterans and development of better medical care for those with persistent, unexplained symptoms. Researchers should undertake studies comparing genetic variations and other differences in veterans experiencing multisymptom illness and asymptomatic veterans. It is likely that multisymptom illness results from the interactions between environmental exposures and genes, and genetics may predispose some individuals to illness, the committee noted. There are sufficient numbers of veterans to conduct meaningful comparisons given that nearly 700,000 U.S. personnel were deployed to the region and more than 250,000 of them suffer from persistant, unexplained symptoms. A consortium involving the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Department of Defense, and National Institutes of Health could coordinate this effort and contribute the necessary resources.

The exhaustive report is an excellent resource for students studying related issues in the health, psychiatic, or national security arenas.