Is There a Gulf War Syndrome?<subtitle>Searching for Syndromes by Factor Analysis of Symptoms</subtitle>

Activity of Paraoxonase/Arylesterase and Butyrylcholinesterase in Peripheral Blood of Gulf War Era Veterans With Neurologic Symptom Complexes or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

“…24,25 Symptoms in the veteran group studied by Dr. Haley were consistent with organophosphate exposure-associated injury to the nervous system, 26,27 and strongly correlated with exposure to variety of influences known or suspected to cause or exacerbate disease, including organophosphate insecticides, and close proximity to possible release of chemical warfare agent in-theater. 19 …”

“…19 The sample population used in these studies was very narrow, consisting of 249 subjects, comprising 41% of a single overseas-deployed naval construction battalion. 24,36 It is thus possible that, although neurologic symptoms exhibited by these subjects were likely related to toxicant exposure and relative capacity of each individual to clear certain pollutants, their experience may not be representative of neurological disorders among Gulf War veterans as a group. One possibility is that the battalion’s in-theater mission assignment resulted in a particularly unlucky convergence of heavy toxicant exposures.…”

“…24–27 Gulf War-era veterans were indeed exposed to various categories and levels of occupational and environmental toxicants, principally organophosphates, in the form of pesticides and pyridostigmine bromide, 3,4 a drug administered as prophylaxis against nerve agent, which is itself neurotoxic. 28 These findings notwithstanding, no clearly defined syndromes unique to veterans of the first Gulf War have yet been identified.…”

Central Executive Dysfunction and Deferred Prefrontal Processing in Veterans With Gulf War Illness

“…Participants were screened for GWI using a factor analytic metric that identified unique GWI symptom clusters (Haley et al, 1997; Iannacchione et al, 2011). These unique symptom clusters consisted of 3 primary GWI classes, which were equally represented in the present study.…”

“…All GWIP diagnoses were confirmed by a physician (RWH) via diagnostic interview. Syndrome 1 ( n = 29) was characterized by problems with attention, memory, reasoning, and depression; syndrome 2 ( n = 36), by chronic confusion, disorientation, balance disturbance, and impotence; and syndrome 3 ( n = 31), by joint and muscle pain, fatigue, and extremity paresthesias (Haley et al, 1997; Iannacchione et al, 2011). No behavioral differences were found on the SWMT between these syndrome classes; thus they were combined for all subsequent analyses (all p s > .05; See Supplementary Table 1).…”