We need to identify exposures or risk factors that first reflect the known epidemiology of Gulf War illness and also did not apply to the 2003 Iraq war (again assuming that no comparable 'Iraq War syndrome' will emerge).
In a statement, the department defended its research into gulf war illness.
The Ministry of Defence said it has funded extensive research into Gulf war illness.
They are similar to the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and Gulf War illness.
Gulf war illness has been the source of much frustration and dispute practically since veterans first reported symptoms in the 1990s.
But recent research is bolstering the view that the symptoms, known collectively as gulf war illness, are fundamentally biological in nature.
The research makes clear that "gulf war illness is real," said Rakib U. Rayhan, the principal author of the new study.
In 1999, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sponsored a conference on gulf war illness, and Dr. Feussner, of the Veterans Affairs Department, attended.
At the same hearing, a member of an advisory panel to the department said the agency still seemed guided by the view that symptoms of gulf war illness were stress-induced.
New Cases of Gulf War Syndrome: Veterans of recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan appear to be suffering a similar set of symptoms to Gulf War illness, first diagnosed in veterans of the 1991 Gulf War, reports USA Today.
Such neurological damage, the researchers theorize, caused the veterans to be more sensitive to pain, to feel easily fatigued and to experience loss of short-term "working memory," all symptoms associated with gulf war illness.
