Flesh and Stone

Brain Parasite Influences Rats’ Attraction to Cats

2008-12-03T22:20:00-06:00

Sometimes the introduction of a foreign body such as a parasite can cause typical behaviors to go haywire. Patrick House, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., studies the behavioral manipulation of fear in rats by the parasite toxoplasma gondii. House found that rats infected with the parasite were curious about, even attracted to, cat odor.

Because taxoplasma gondii can only reproduce in the guts of cats, the parasite is dependent on rats to spread itself from feline to feline. To overcome this obstacle, the parasite leads the rat to do some strange things.

In studies, House observed that both the fear and attraction pathways in the brain of taxo-infected rats “light up” after they smell cat urine.

The researchers believe the parasite hijacks brain circuits in the amygdala, making the rat exhibit attraction when it should show fear, House said.

Many humans carry the taxoplasma gondii parasite, said House. They can get it from eating uncooked meat and unwashed vegetables, or from handling a cat litter box. The parasite can be harmful to developing fetuses, and expectant mothers have been advised to avoid contact with cat litter.

While the presence of the parasite has been considered harmless, some epidemiological research suggests that the parasite may have an association with schizophrenia and risk-taking behavior, House said.

House presented his research at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting.

The Secret War: Physicians on health care costs

2008-12-02T21:15:00-06:00

From my perspective as a patient, it appears that physicians and other health care professionals face a debate much more burdensome than deciding courses of treatment, the rigors and costs of training, and ethical issues like abortion, euthanasia and the role of humanities in medicine.

On a daily basis they are faced with literature and incentives from pharmas, and disincentives from HMOs and insurers to refer patients to mental health professionals. They must consider bonuses based on profit, time constraints established by administrators, and staff cuts and overtime for those remaining. These are practical, everyday decisions that affect not only their financial well-being and their jobs, but also the health of those they treat.

I wonder how many lay people and politicians are aware of the great effort the AMA and its panels of specialists put in to establish criteria for treatment only to have those criteria curved, carved, and altered by insurance companies, pharmaceutical concerns and HMOs to the point where they are so watered down as to lose their value as standards.

How many physicians realize the subconscious effect the lobbying groups and the subsequent payment plans have on physician efforts to develop standards independent of those groups?

Regarding costs, the basic questions become:

Are physicians in general agreement on a standard criterion for care, regardless of cost? Are current practice guidelines (laboriously researched, reviewed and released on consensus) independent of insurers or are the profit-making concerns of insurers and others consciously or unconsciously built into these standards?

As George Dawson, a Minnesota physician, points out, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) guidelines for depression were such a standard; rigorously designed by experts to provide optimal care, yet severely watered down on the path to adoption.

“The unrecognized battle here is who is in charge of quality care, physicians or insurance companies?” asks Dawson.

The general assumption is, of course, the insurance companies.

As more and more physicians enter the debate on health care reform they need to be aware of their own conscious and unconscious motivations – their Pavlovian reaction to cost/benefit.

Recently, during a discussion on health care options among physicians, patients and other interested parties, I inquired as to the viability of the president-elect’s promise of health care for all equal to that provided members of Congress.

The general reaction was not “What a great idea!” or even “No, that would not be beneficial to the many in terms of providing optimal coverage.” The most instantaneous reaction was “My God -- the cost!”

Is it preconditioned thinking that forces physicians to take such a position?

As of March 2008, state and local governments were paying an average of $4.15 for health care benefits per worker per hour and private industry paid $1.92, according to a new study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s assumed the cost for Congress is at least in the same range as other government employees.

But which is the prime motivator here – cost or treatment?

Once again, a standard must be set for care before the cost is put in place and then managed based not on cost, but on a standardized, unified approach to the treatment goal.

Surely this is better than “implicit rationing” without a scientific basis. Setting a standard of care for non-elective procedures should be the first step among many in this great unrecognized battle.

Jeff McCallum is a commercial building contractor, a stage four cancer survivor and author of a book of poems for patients and clinicians.

Scientists hone in on how viruses might cross from birds to humans

2008-12-01T08:21:00-06:00

Human metapneumovirus (HMPV), a common cause of lower respiratory infection in young children, originated in birds and may have been passed to humans about 200 years ago, according to new research published in the current issue of the Journal of General Virology.

By the age of five, “virtually all children have been exposed to the virus and re-infections appear to be common," said Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, in a written statement.

HMPV causes cold-like symptoms including runny nose, cough, sore throat and fever in humans. The infection can lead to more serious illnesses such as bronchitis and pneumonia.

"HMPV was first discovered in 2001, but studies have shown that the virus has been circulating in humans for at least 50 years," said Fouchier. "HMPV is closely related to Avian metapneumovirus C (AMPV-C), which infects birds. Because of the similarity, scientists have suggested that HMPV emerged from a bird virus that crossed the species barrier to infect humans."

Metapneumoviruses have high evolutionary rates like other RNA viruses such as influenza, hepatitis C and SARS. Analyzing genetic information obtained from many different strains of HMPV and AMPV-C circulating in humans and birds, the researchers determined that the AMPV-C virus crossed the species barrier to infect humans as the HMPV about 200 years ago.

Understanding how the viruses mutate, evolve and cross to humans from other species will help scientists develop better ways to monitor and predict the emergence of new pathogenic viruses.

Citation:

deGraaf M, Osterhaus AD, Fouchier RA, Holmes EC. Evolutionary dynamics of human and avian metapneumoviruses J Gen Virol. 2008 Dec;89(Pt 12):2933-42.

Stopping HIV/AIDS Locally and Globally

2008-11-30T17:31:00-06:00

Local clinic honors World AIDS Day with free HIV tests

The Family Tree Clinic in St. Paul, Minn., is offering free rapid HIV tests Mon. Dec. 1, in collaboration with World AIDS Day.

The screening test looks for the presence of HIV antibodies. If antibodies are detected, a Western Blot test is used to confirm the results since general screenings give a false positive about 20 percent of the time.

Barbara Peterson, a Family Tree clinician, said if an individual’s tests come back positive, the clinic will help the individual line up primary care, social workers, and insurance.

HIV is a reportable disease, meaning it must be reported to the state health department. But it’s up to the person being tested whether they submit their information anonymously or confidentially. If people testing positive provide their previous partners' names, the health department can contact them for recommended screening.

A slow yet steady increase in reported cases

Last year, 325 new cases of HIV positive were reported in Minnesota, a 30 percent increase from 2002 and an 81 percent jump from 1997. An estimated 2,500 Minnesotans are believed to be living with HIV disease but do not know they are infected, according to the Minnesota Department of Health’s 2007 HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report.

More Minnesota HIV/AIDS Facts:
·         A new case of HIV disease is reported in Minnesota every 27 hours.
·         5,950 people were known to be living with HIV disease in Minnesota as of December 31, 2007
·         8,504 cases of HIV disease have been reported in Minnesota since 1982. Of those, 2,912, or 34%, of these people have died.
Source: HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report – 2007, Minnesota Department of Health

While Minnesota is considered a low risk region, worldwide, an estimated 33 million people are living with HIV.

“Even though we’re in a low risk community, we want it to stay that way,” says Peterson.

Maneesha Jain, Family Tree’s hotline coordinator, knows some people resist getting tested because they fear the result. What does she tell them? “It’s peace of mind. If you’re wanting to live in reality and take control of your life you can know and make decisions on that. If you know you have it you can monitor your health and the chance of living a high quality of life is much higher. People also need to think about the potential impact on others.”

Jain said the clinic was able to offer free tests through the generosity of its testing kit supplier, which donated the kits.

Family Tree Clinic provides birth control and sexual health testing and treatment services and information for men, women and adolescents.

In Indonesia, proposed surveillance of people with HIV an ‘act of desperation’

A bill in the Papua province of Indonesia to implant a microchip into HIV positive patients who are “sexually aggressive” to monitor their activities has met with strong resistance. The implication for human rights abuses the law could bring is clear. Such a law could also prove counter-productive to screening efforts.

But the introduction of the bill underscores the desperation surrounding the HIV crisis in Papua.

A proponent of the draft law, legislator John Manangsang, told the Jakarta Post that the microchips would only be implanted in people living with HIV/AIDS who were sexually aggressive.

“Aggressive means actively seeking sexual intercourse. This is one way to protect healthy people,” he said.

“Do not misunderstand human rights; if we respect the rights of the people living with HIV/AIDS, then we must also respect the rights of healthy people.” He said the draft bylaw also requires everyone to take HIV/AIDS tests so that preventative measures can be taken early on.

“I am a doctor, saving lives is my profession. If we want to save the only limited number of Papuans, we have to take real action because 47 percent of (the country’s) HIV/AIDS (cases) are in Papua.”

A virus has been sweeping the world for the past two decades, causing a disease which has killed millions of people and which looks likely to kill millions more. HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus. After a period of time this virus damages the immune system, and this causes a variety of symptoms known as AIDS. This time period varies, depending on factors such as access to AIDS drugs, and possibly such factors as nutrition, the presence of other medical conditions, and stress. In the absence of treatment, the average time between HIV infection and progression to AIDS is around ten years. – from AVERT, an international AIDS charity

A bold plan for ending HIV/AIDS in Africa?

If all adults in Africa were tested annually for HIV and every identified infected person received immediate treatment, it “could virtually end the AIDS epidemic in Africa in about a decade," according to a mathematical model published in the Lancet on Nov. 26.

In the model, people in South Africa and Malawi were voluntarily tested annually and started on a regimen of antiretrovirals if their test results found them to be HIV-positive, even if they showed no symptoms. According to the model, HIV cases decreased by 95 percent within 10 years.

The model was developed by AIDS treatment experts Reuben Granich, Charlie Gilks, Christopher Dye and colleagues at the World Health Organization. The researchers have faced much criticism from other experts and commentators after the model was published, but said they offered it as a basis for discussion and additional research. Kevin de Cock, HIV/Aids director at the WHO, and one of the authors, defended the model to the Guardian, saying that it “offers hope at a time when other avenues appear to have closed.”

The strategy would:

Reduce the estimated number of AIDS-related deaths between 2008 and 2050 by about 50%, from about 8.7 million to 3.9 million deaths
Reduce the prevalence of HIV to less than 1% within 50 years
Decrease incidence rates from 20 new cases per 1,000 people annually to one case per 1,000 people annually in about 10 years
Include additional steps such as comprehensive sex education and male circumcision

"Although other prevention strategies, alone or in combination, could substantially reduce HIV incidence, our model suggests that only universal voluntary testing and immediate initiation of antiretroviral drugs could reduce transmission to the point at which elimination might be feasible by 2020 for a generalized epidemic, such as that in South Africa," according to the researchers.

A major investment

The financial investment to undertake such an endeavor is substantial -- $1.7 billion annually. That’s far out of reach for developing African nations to manage. But from Minnesota to Papua and South Africa, HIV/AIDS is a global health crisis. While prevention and treatment efforts have stabilized the epidemic in some regions, it is not retreating. It will be very expensive to address, but not when you compare its costs to what has already been spent globally on financial bailouts that benefit the wealthiest, most powerful nations and citizens. It’s just a matter of priorities and keeping promises.

Citation:

Universal voluntary HIV testing with immediate antiretroviral therapy as a strategy for elimination of HIV transmission: a mathematical model The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 26 November 2008doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(08)61697-9

Bees voted most ‘irreplaceable species’ in the world

2008-11-28T11:19:00-06:00

For more photos of bees and other insects visit wolfpix's photostream.

Bees were declared the most invaluable species on the planet at an Earthwatch-sponsored debate held last week at the Royal Geographical Society in London.

On November 20, the European Parliament adopted a resolution (485-13 with five abstentions) calling on the European Commission to increase research into the cause of declining bee populations and to take immediate action to reverse the decline throughout the EU and the rest of the world. Sponsors of the resolution warn that the decline in bees poses a threat to food production. The resolution also calls for research to establish whether there is a link between the use of pesticides, including thiamethoxam, imidacloprid, clothianidin and fipronil, on bee mortality.

George McGavin of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History convinced audience members that bees deserved the designtion because they play a crucial role in world agriculture. He noted that one-quarter of a million species of flowering plants depend on bees, and that without bees, the world would lose flowering plants, and many fruit and vegetables.
Among the major causes of bee declines are habitat loss and fragmentation, increasing use of insecticides, and diseases.
“Bee populations are in freefall,” said McGavin. “A world without bees would be totally catastrophic.”

The other speakers at the “Irreplaceable – The World’s Most Invaluable Species” debate were Ian Redmond OBE, chair of the Ape Alliance representing primates, Kate Jones of the Zoological Society of London, arguing for bats; Professor Lynne Boddy of Cardiff School of Biosciences, representing fungi; and Professor David Thomas of the School of Ocean Sciences, University of Bangor, who was a close second in the debate, with his argument for plankton.

This was the eighth annual debate sponsored by Earthwatch with support from the Mitsubishi Corporation. Previous themes included endangered ecosystems and invasive species.

Earthwatch, an international environmental charity, currently funds 61 environmental research projects in 31 countries in the areas of sustainable resource management, climate change, oceans and sustainable cultures.

For more information visit www.earthwatch.org./europe. The debate will be broadcast in Europe Christmas Eve at 8 pm on Radio 4.

Health Care

2008-11-25T11:24:00-06:00

There must be a common denominator denoting policy from agenda.

One aspect of policy, prudent and expedient course of action,

has become archaic, replaced by wrangling over the need to denominate the issues

from a particular point of view.

Trickle up

or trickle down?

Patient

Provider

Pharma

Insurer

Government

the octopus that is hospital and health plan

multi-million dollar machines

with fuzzy paper trails and waiting lists

for organs

Why me,

why not me,

why him

in a capital market where bail outs apply to everything

but the grocery bill,

unless you’re on food stamps,

leaving the great middle class

footing the bill,

lost in the shuffle.

We pay whether we play

or not.

Is access the issue,

or extent?

Extent of coverage,

reimbursement

care,

cost?

Who limits what?

Coverage

care

cost

upside income

time

is money

and we only have so much of each

to give and to take

Doctors deontic

medical meliorates

as lost in the shuffle as motherless child

Demystify the goal

denote the agenda

deodorize policy

delineate dendrite demigods

denouement will follow

Jeff McCallum's bio and web site.

Study: Bad breath may be linked to stomach ulcers, cancer

2008-11-23T22:52:00-06:00

Persistent halitosis could be an early clue to something more serious, according to a new report in the Journal of Medical Microbiology.

Helicobacter pylori, the same bacteria that causes stomach ulcers and is a cause of some gastric cancers, was present in 21 out of 326 Japanese people with halitosis and 16 out of 102 people with gum disease who took part in a research study in Fukuoka, Japan.

"Recently, scientists discovered that H. pylori can live in the mouth," said Dr. Nao Suzuki of Fukuoka Dental College. "We wanted to determine whether the bacteria can cause bad breath, so we tested patients complaining of halitosis for the presence of H. pylori."

"Halitosis is a common problem in humans, and bad breath is largely caused by periodonitis, tongue debris, poor oral hygiene and badly fitted fillings," said Suzuki. "Bacteria produce volatile compounds that smell unpleasant, including hydrogen sulphide, methyl mercaptan and dimethyl sulphide. Doctors often measure the levels of these compounds to diagnose the problem. Gastrointestinal diseases are also generally believed to cause halitosis."

An estimated 20 to 80 percent of people in the developed world and over 90 percent of people in the developing carry the bacterium.

"Although the presence of H. pylori in the mouth does not directly cause bad breath, it is associated with periodontal disease, which does cause bad breath," said Suzuki. "We now need to look into the relationship between H. pylori in the mouth and in the stomach. We hope to discover the role of the mouth in transmitting H. pylori stomach infections in the near future."

The patients in the study carrying H. pylori also were carrying Prevotella intermedia, another type of bacteria and had more blood in their saliva.

There are more than 600 different species of bacteria that can live in the mouth. Scientists have named only about half of them.

Citation:
J Med Microbiol. 2008 Dec;57(Pt 12):1553-1559.

Related:

Another species of mouth bacteria identified

Avoid food poisoning from your Thanksgiving turkey leftovers

2008-11-27T09:42:00-06:00

Cooking the Thanksgiving turkey to 165 degrees will safely kill off harmful bacteria such as Salmonella and E. coli, but leftovers can still lead to food poisoning, according to Texas Tech University food safety expert Mindy Brashears.

Most turkeys carry a bacteria called Clostridium perfringens – a common cause of food poisoning -- that leave spores strong enough to survive a trip through the oven. And while those spores aren’t harmful if eaten, they will return to their vegetative state if warm turkey meat is left out too long.

“Even if your turkey is cooked well, you could run into problems if you leave it sitting out all day,” Brashears said.

Brashears recommends:

Chill leftovers quickly after the meal.

Cut meat off the bone and store perishables in shallow pans – any deeper than four inches will keep the food from cooling fast enough – to prevent the reemergence of bacteria.

Reheat leftover turkey to 165 degrees and bring gravy to a boil.

Handle stuffing that’s been cooked inside the turkey or gravy with turkey meat in it the same way by quickly chilling, storing in shallow pans, and reheating to 165 degrees.

(The USDA recommends cooking stuffing outside the bird, unless you’re certain the stuffing also reaches an internal temperature of 165 degrees, at minimum. The best places to check the internal temp are at the innermost part of the thigh and wing and the thickest part of the breast.)

“You want to avoid keeping food in what I call the temperature danger zone,” Brashears said. “Either keep it cold or keep it hot.”

The USDA also states that turkey leftovers should be consumed within three to four days.

Bon appetite!

More tips on safe handling of turkey and stuffing

The Newest Psychotropic Drug: Being Seen

2008-11-23T19:01:00-06:00

It’s been 10 years since the hit movie, The Truman Show, ripped its way through box offices throughout the country, causing people to wonder if anything like that were possible.

The script writers of this movie, like so many keen observers of societal trends, have predicted future events with amazing accuracy; the premise of The Truman Show is alive and thriving throughout the United States.

It’s alive and well on so-called reality TV and on the internet.

The Truman Show story is that of an enterprising, maniacal television producer, who adopted Truman after his mother died in childbirth, and televised every moment of his life 24/7 beginning with his birth.

I always wondered if that meant there was a potty-cam in addition to the hundreds of cameras that follow Truman’s every move. Of all of our activities, I would put that at the top of the ‘privacy’ list.

Today’s teens (and some adults) have taken the thread of the idea to the max, and become their own webcam writers, actors, directors, producers and distributors, sending out every aspect of their lives over the Internet to be seen by all.

They, too, can expose every aspect of their lives to public scrutiny from birth to death, because their parents captured everything about them starting with photos of pregnant mom to dad, armed with a video camera in the delivery room.

I’ve also wondered just how it affects children to actually see the pain their mothers went through giving birth to them. It’s one thing to hear about mom’s delivery room adventure; it’s quite another to actually see it with nothing left to the imagination. For the normally adjusted person, it’s just another one of life’s moments. For the maladjusted or the mentally ill it could become the focus of matriarchal hating, or be turned inward into self-loathing.

Streaming death live

From birth to death they expose themselves to the bright lights of the video camera and broadcast it to any and all who want to see, and there are plenty of internet sites for them to do it. The most popular are My Space and Facebook, but it doesn’t have to stop there, because anyone can get his own web site or start up a blog.

So it was with 19-year-old Broward College (Florida) student Abraham Biggs, who suffered from manic depression, committed suicide in the glaring light of his video camera and streamed it live.

Biggs was not the first, nor will he be the last to webcast his own demise.

Watching the live stream, the insensitive urged him on while others pleaded with him to stop. The sane, logical thinkers among them notified the police, who contacted the web site and tracked Biggs down. By the time they arrived it was too late, and their discovery of Biggs’ body was also steamed live.

Seeing and being seen rules

So it is with today’s teens that being seen is the ultimate goal. “"If it's not recorded or documented then it doesn't even seem worthwhile," said Montana Miller, assistant professor of popular culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. "For today's generation it might seem, `What's the point of doing it if everyone isn't going to see it?'" she added. She also said that from a sociological point of view, Biggs’ very public suicide wasn’t all that shocking in view of how today’s teens chronicle every aspect of their lives on Web sites. Additionally, Miller likened Biggs’ suicide to other public suicides, such as jumping from a bridge, freeway overpass or rooftop.

This generation of “must be seen” children, who were raised by parents who were part of the “you can-do-no-wrong and don’t have to accomplish anything to be rewarded” generation, are even worse off than their “I’m terrific” and “I don’t have to prove anything to succeed” parents.

I know people who judged their worth by how many Christmas or birthday cards they received in the mail, or how many times a day their phones rang. After that it was how many answering machine messages that had when they got home. That morphed into the number of emails are in their inboxes. All really bad measuring sticks of one’s worth as a human being.

Today, it’s see and be seen as often as possible on as many web sites as possible. Is this their version of 15 minutes of fame, or how they measure their worth? If it’s a measure of self-worth, and if Miller is correct that they think they’re nobody unless the world sees them online, then I feel extremely sorry for these young people. What a horrid way to live.

I can’t imagine what the next dehumanizing thing we will do to validate ourselves. I just had a horrid thought. What if the next phase in our backwards development is to establish people zoos where those who choose to can be view live doing all the things that used to make us uniquely human?

Sources:

Fla. teen commits suicide with live Web audience

Family shock at Florida web death

Sandy Sand is a resident of Los Angeles, a free lance writer and former editor of the Tolucan in beautiful downtown Burbank. She is also a contributor to the Los Angeles Daily News, runrundan.blogspot.com, freerangegrannies.blogspot.com

The truth comes out about Gulf War Illness

2008-11-21T13:24:00-06:00

After an agonizing 17 years, the U.S. government will finally have to admit what veterans and their families have long known -- Gulf War Illness is a very real and debilitating condition that has affected one-quarter of soldiers who served in the 1990-91 war.

The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses (RAC-GWVI) -- a committee of scientists and veterans appointed by Congress in 2002 to investigate the illnesses experienced by veterans of Operation Desert Storm -- presented its 450-page report to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake on November 17.

The new report, which chronicles the ailments suffered by some 175,000 Gulf War veterans--including memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue, widespread pain, respiratory symptoms, digestive problems and skin rashes -- contradicts previous reports, which denied that Gulf War Illness even existed.

Among those previous reports, a 2006 National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine, claimed that the soldiers were simply suffering from stress disorders typical to any combat zone.

The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses report is available on the Boston University School of Public Health web site.

As the RAC-GWVI report plainly states:

Gulf War illness fundamentally differs from trauma and stress-related syndromes described after other wars. Studies consistently indicate that Gulf War illness is not the result of combat or other stressors and that Gulf War veterans have lower rates of posttraumatic stress disorder than veterans of other wars.

According to the committee's scientific director Roberta White, veterans "have been plagued by ill health since their return 17 years ago. Although evidence for this health phenomenon is overwhelming, veterans repeatedly find that their complaints are met with cynicism and a 'blame the victim' mentality that attributes their health problems to mental illness or non-physical factors."

Lea Steele, who served as RAC-GWVI scientific director, told the Washington Post, "VA docs often know nothing about it and aren't able to help them. Sometimes, they treat them as if they are head cases or malingering."

As Anthony Hardie, national secretary for Veterans of Modern Warfare, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "It really closes one of the darker chapters of the legacy of the Gulf War, and that is Gulf War illness."

Hardie, a 23-year-old sergeant during the war, now suffers from respiratory problems, fatigue and chronic pain. "The report clearly lays out that Gulf War illness was caused by unique exposures; it lays out clearly that Gulf war illness is not a stress-related or trauma condition, that it is not the same as in wars before or since. It is unique," he said.

The report cites two main causes of Gulf War Illness -- exposure to toxic chemicals, including pesticides that were used against sand flies and other pests, and pyridostigmine bromide, or PB, a drug administered to troops that was supposed to protect them from nerve gas.

At least half of all troops in the 1991 war took PB, a drug that was not approved by the Federal Drug Administration, but for which the FDA gave the Defense Department a waiver for informed consent. In other words, soldiers were being used as guinea pigs, and they had no way of knowing.

The committee also did not rule out some other causes of Gulf War Illness, including exposure to nerve agents and smoke from oil well fires, and receiving a large numbers of vaccines. Department of Defense reports show that about 100,000 U.S. troops may have been exposed to low-level nerve agents after the demolition of Iraqi munitions near Khamisiyah, Iraq, in 1991. Even being exposed to low levels of nerve gas can have lasting brain deficits.

The report cites a veteran who said:

I arrived in Theater on January 6, 1991...During official visits to strategic military cities, there were frequent SCUD attacks during which I heard chemical alarms sound. When I asked if these alarms meant chemicals had been detected, I was told that the chemical alarms had malfunctioned.
I became ill and was treated for nausea, headaches, vomiting, diarrhea and high temperature. Rashes I had over my body I thought were normal and expected since I spent most days in the sand, wind and sun, with all the attendant fleas, flies and desert parasites. Headaches I attributed to fatigue and lack of sleep. The symptoms...continued after I returned home and got progressively worse.

British Gulf War veterans are also seeing the effects. "Recognition of the full extent of the illnesses suffered by these veterans of the conflict and the obligation owed to them is long overdue," said David Craig, Marshal of the Royal Air Force and chief of the defense staff during the Gulf War. "They are victims of the war, as much as any one struck by a bullet or shell."

While the report did not link depleted uranium (DU) to the Gulf War Illness, the widespread effects of soldiers' exposure to DU are also a part of the report. Said one veteran:

I knew we were shooting DU rounds, but we were never told to stay away from vehicles that were hit by DU rounds. Now I know that we probably got DU dust all over us. But we didn't know any better, and we were dipping, smoking and eating without having washed our hands.
Right after the war, we saw lots of guys from other units climbing on the vehicles we had shot with DU rounds...In April 1991, while we were in Kuwait, I started getting diarrhea, nausea, stomach cramps, headaches, and tightness in my chest. My problems have gotten worse since then.

According to the RAC-GWVI report, Gulf War veterans developed amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) at twice the rate of nondeployed veterans. It also found that personnel stationed downwind from the Khamisiyah munitions demolitions have died from brain cancer at twice the rate of other Gulf War veterans.

The report showed that very few veterans have recovered from Gulf War Illness, and the researchers had no recommendations for treatment. This is hardly surprising, since the government has done everything it could to refuse to recognize that the condition even existed.

And even though millions of federal dollars have gone to supposed Gulf War research, little has changed for sick veterans of the war. "In recent years, both the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs have reported a lot of studies that weren't Gulf War illness as Gulf War research," said the RAC-GWVI's Steele. "Some of the money was misused."

The Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs claim they have spent nearly $440 million since 1994 on Gulf War research. But the RAC-GWVI found that the money was largely used to fund research that had nothing to do with Gulf War Illness.

A lot of the DOD money actually went to projects for soldiers currently deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to the report, the department has cut funding for the Gulf War research from about $30 million a year in 2003 to less than $5 million in 2006.

This is hardly unique for the soldiers sent to fight U.S. wars. It took 20 years for the soldiers suffering from the effects of Agent Orange, the chemical defoliant used during the Vietnam War, to force the government to acknowledge their illness.

Now that the facts are finally exposed on the impact of Gulf War Illness, we have to press the federal government to spend the money necessary to find a treatment for the tens of thousand of veterans who are paying for the U.S.'s wars with their health.

Elizabeth Schulte is a correspondent for Socialist Worker, where this article first appeared.