Navy researcher may have found key to Gulf War Syndrome

USA Today reported on May 12, 2011 that a Navy researcher studying the dust inhaled by veterans of Irag, Kuwait, and Afghanistan may have found the cause for the many symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome.

Kelly Kennedy, reported:

"From my research and that of others, I really think this may be the smoking gun," says Navy Capt. Mark Lyles, chair of medical sciences and biotechnology at the Center for Naval Warfare Studies at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. "It fits everything — symptoms, timing, everything."

Lyles and other researchers found that dust particles — up to 1,000 of which can sit on the head of a pin — gathered in Iraq and Kuwait contain 37 metals, including aluminum, lead, manganese, strontium and tin. The metals have been linked to neurological disorders, cancer, respiratory ailments, depression and heart disease, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Researchers believe the metals occur both naturally and as a byproduct of pollution.

The Department of Defense has not accepted the dust as the cause of the symptoms found in Gulf War Syndrome. It found the dust is "not noticeably different from samples collected in the Sahara Desert and desert regions in the U.S. and China."

SOURCE: USA Today online edition, May 12, 2011.

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