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American Morning
Department of Veterans Affairs Releases Report on Gulf War Syndrome
Aired June 25, 2002 - 09:22 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The Department of Veterans Affairs has just released a report on Gulf War Syndrome, an ongoing debate right now about what happened about 10 years ago in the Persian Gulf War. The findings are highly technical, so we've asked Dr. Sanjay Gupta to help us interpret this for us. Back with us.
Good morning, again.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, yes.
HEMMER: At the outset, frame the debate here from both sides on this story.
GUPTA: This has been something that's been going on for quite some time, $350 million, 200 studies basically looking to find out if gulf war vets are having diseases at a higher rate than the general population. Most of the studies, including some pretty significant studies from organization like the Institute of Medicine says there's no significant link, no significant cause and effect between the two, being in the Gulf War and having the diseases.
We do see that Gulf War vets do have a higher rate of death compared to the general population, and some say that's not entirely unexpected, because they're young men, for the most part, and young men die of trauma much more likely than general population. They also say that some people say there was exposure to pesticides, exposure to pesticides, things like that.
One side of the debate says, listen, if there was an exposure to nerve agents, why weren't so many more people sick? Why just the sort of select population?
Other people say that there was actually a genetic susceptibility to some of these nerve agents. Some of the symptoms that there complaining about, fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle and joint pain, headaches, anxiety, depression, dizziness, sleep disorders. As you can see, Bill, all those pretty subjective things really hard to, you know, pinpoint a disease on any of those given things.
HEMMER: Back up just a little bit. How many people in total are we talking about here.
GUPTA: That number varies as well, because a lot of these people are not reporting. Some people are over-reporting, but you know, the numbers are certainly in the tens of thousands.
HEMMER: You mentioned cause and effect. And ultimately, what one has to determine in this study is whether or not U.S. troops fighting in the Persian Gulf War, January and February of 1991, if indeed they were exposed to some sort of nerve agent or chemical warfare. Is that the ultimate question?
GUPTA: Exactly. What was the cause? It could have been one of those things. It could have been smoking oil from some of the fires. It could have been all sorts of different things that people were exposed to in the Gulf War. But as you say, specifically, the effects as a result of that. Are those things causing these subjective complaints that we're hearing. You can see the list of various things that people were exposed to in the Gulf War. That's been confirmed. What hasn't been confirmed is, what is the result of that? Are these things actually leading to headaches? Are they leading to the dizziness. the anxiety?
Post-traumatic stress disorder, Bill, is something that is very hard to objectify, but certainly something that a lot of veterans of wars, Gulf War, others wars as well, have gone through.
What that translates into in terms of today, now, what is it like for those people? Are they having the symptoms as a result of that? That's going to be much harder to prove no matter how much money, no matter how many studies are conducted.
HEMMER: I know you're a doctor and you're not historian. But I do know you know an awful lot about the topic. Go back to Vietnam. Go back to Korea, was there any evidence like they're seeing now, that's being reported anyway, as a result of post-1991?
GUPTA: That's an excellent point. And again, the post-traumatic stress. All the stress is associated with being in a war are things that we certainly saw after other wars, certainly things linked to some of these more subjective complaints.
Now, there were some new things with the Gulf War that we hadn't seen before, with regards to some of the oils that were burning, some of the nerve agents that were used, some of the toxins that people may have potentially been exposed to, but a lot of these subjective things, again, the headaches, the anxiety and things like that, were things that we saw in previous conflicts, previous times of great stress for our country.
HEMMER: I got another question for you, but I want to bring in Jack and Daryn to on this.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Go ahead. I thought you guys had a question. I apologize.
HEMMER: There are a lot of people out there who develop conspiracy theories, and this has circle this story for quite some time. How is it that the government can assure the people who served in the Persian Gulf War that they're covering up nothing on this? GUPTA: I don't think that they can, and I think that's part of the reason that it's been such a hot debate topic. And certainly the committee, the Research Advisory Committee, which is speaking to the Veteran's Affairs organization, presenting their findings right now, is saying that there were some things that we didn't fully investigate around this time. We being the government, not me particularly, but the government investigating these things, and maybe not such a good job is done is what they're saying.
However, again it is a difficult task, although an important one, to establish that link, establish that cause and effect. You can't call something a disease, you can't call something a result of something unless you establish that. That's critical.
HEMMER: Still looking for the proof apparently.
GUPTA: Absolutely.
HEMMER: Thank you, Sanjay. Good to see you, again, pal.
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