To substantiate the impact of a toxic environment as a cause of P-D, the
following article refers to good research that ties Gulf War Syndrome to
neuronal damage caused by toxic exposure.
******************************* News Aarticle*******************
NEW STUDY CONFIRMS BRAIN STEM DAMAGE TO SICK GULF WAR VETERANS
By John Hanchette
Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON - Veterans of the 1991 war with Iraq complaining of mysterious
"Gulf War Illness" symptoms are showing significant damage in the brain stem
area, according to a new Pentagon-sponsored study at the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center.
Published in the current issue of the peer - review science journal
Radiology, the $3 million study employed state-of-the-art brain scans and
raises new implications that troops in the Persian Gulf War might have been
exposed to low levels of the saran nerve gas.
More than 15 percent of the 697,000 troops who served in the desert war
have complained of mysterious chronic symptoms since then - including joint
and muscle pain, headaches, insomnia, memory loss, fatigue, imbalance,
confusion, depression - and some have suffered serious neural illnesses such
as multiple sclerosis and Lou Gehrig's disease.
The Pentagon - at first discounting the complaints, then offering
much-scoffed-at claims that psychological stress was to blame - in recent
years has been pouring millions into research on causes and treatments.
The Texas team looked at 40 Seabees from a Naval Reserve construction
battalions - 22 of them sick and 18 of them well - and six other sick Gulf
War vets randomly selected from other units. The project investigators did
not know which of the 46 vets were sick or which were symptom-free.
Led by UT Southwestern epidemiologist Robert Haley, the study team found
that a vital brain chemical called NAA (N-acetyl-aspartate) necessary for the
good health of brain neurons, was as much as 25 percent lower in the sick
veterans.
Haley, a former top disease investigator for the federal Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said NAA "is really a dramatic
indicator of the brain cell health." Scientists recently have noticed stroke
victims, for instance, will show a depressed level of NAA, then an increased
restoration of the substance once the damaged brain area starts to heal.
Diagnostic researchers used to use magnetic resonance imaging to obtain
clear images of lost or damaged brain tissue from strokes, gunshot wounds or
diseases. The Texas team used a relatively new procedure called MRS -
magnetic resonance spectroscopy - which provides a minutely defined chemical
composition of the brain regions under scrutiny and shows previously
undiscoverable abnormalities.
Haley looked at three areas: the brain stem, which connects the brain and
the spinal cord, and the right and left basal ganglia - sugar-cube-size
groups of nerve cells that sit above the brain stem on both sides, just under
the cerebrum. These areas are vital in controlling smooth muscle actions,
memory, breathing, sleeping, thought connection, emotions and balance.
The article reported that the veterans with the severest symptoms -
memory loss, disrupted balance, severe fatigue, frequent confusion - showed
severe damage to all three areas: brain stem, right and left ganglia.
In the less-ill subjects, damage was found only in the ganglia, or in the
stem alone. The findings, said Haley, might mean some vets have lost up to 25
percent of functioning neurons in those brain areas, or that all cells have
lost 25 percent of their NAA, or a combination.
"There's cautious optimism," said Haley, "that if it means all cells are
25 percent injured, we could eventually see possible rehabilitation through
somehow restoring NAA. We don't yet know what NAA really does."
He said the brain damage in the Gulf War vets is similar to that found in
very early stages of at least four relentlessly progressive neural diseases:
Parkinson's, Huntington's chorea, Wilson's disease, and Fahr's syndrome.
Haley and associates have proposed "more big research, almost a Manhattan
Project approach" on this course, and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas,
has added $5 million to the defense appropriations bill for an expanded
research facility at UT Southwestern Medical for that purpose. That bill has
passed a Senate committee and a floor vote is expected soon.
Previous tests at UT Southwestern on the sick Seabees showed they have
lower-than-normal levels of an enzyme called paraoxanase, which has been
shown to protect against the nerve gas sarin, which Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein was known to have in his arsenal. Many of the vets tested, said
Haley, were deployed in areas where chemical alarms went off constantly and
sensitive equipment recorded readings of nerve gas in the region, and where
prevailing winds might have carried plumes from bombed Iraqi chemical plants.
The Pentagon called the study "interesting work, but it is not yet
conclusive" - and noted in a release that animal studies indicate exposure to
nerve agents "causing no short-term signs or symptoms do not produce chronic
illness." In other words, if symptoms weren't noticed on the battlefield,
nerve gas didn't' cause them after troops returned home.
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This information should be brought to the attention of the Veteran's groups
in your area. They can and should petition their Senatorf for the budgeting
of funds for the NETRPS research by the DOD.
A good program for PWP and for all veterans (and the genreal public).
Sid Levin
