This research paper discusses the controversy surrounding the symptoms of ill-health developed by a small but significantly significant fraction of veterans of the Persian Gulf War which suggest that they may have been exposed to unusual toxic chemical or other environmental risks during the course of that war. For reasons which are not entirely clear, probably related to institutional inertia and possibly an unwillingness to admit its unpreparedness for chemical and biological warfare, the national security establishment of the American government has been evasive and lacking in credibility on the issues involved. The scientific and medical evidence is far from complete which means that an adequate explanation of the origins of the Gulf War Syndrome has not yet appeared; nevertheless, it appears more likely than not that appreciable numbers of troops were exposed to dangerous chemical substances against which they were inadequately protected by their own governments. Further research into the causes of the Gulf War Syndrome and appropriate modes of treatment is needed.
In response to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, the Allied coalition led by the United States sent a large force to the Persian Gulf area, including about 697,000 American servicemen and women, some of them there from mid-August until the following March. Operation Desert Storm, the war itself, consisted of a 39 day bombing campaign and a four day ground campaign. Casualties among the allied forces were the lowest of any major war in which the United States has been involved. However, within months after the ending of the war and continuing to the present time, veterans began to complain of a variety of symptoms which many of them and their physicians came to believe had some connection with their service during the Persian Gulf War. Those symptoms included chronic fatigue, skin rash, headaches, arthralgias/myalgias (pains of the joints and connective ...