Gulf veterans' health woes confirmed Prevalence of illnesses documented in 2 studies

LEBANON, Pa. -- Two new government studies show for the first time that veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war are far more likely to suffer from a variety of serious health problems than troops who did not serve in the war, a finding that appears to vindicate ailing veterans who have said that their service in the gulf has cost them their health.

The studies -- one conducted by the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the other by the Navy -- do not resolve the mystery of what is making most of the veterans ill.

But they clearly show that gulf war veterans are having health problems in unusual numbers and that their illnesses can be disabling, even though they do not necessarily result in hospital admissions or death. Government studies published earlier this month showed that gulf war veterans were not hospitalized or dying at unusual rates through the fall of 1993.

Pub Date: 11/26/96