VA links ‘91 Gulf War, ALS

WASHINGTON — Veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf War were at least twice as likely to be diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease as non-Gulf veterans or other people younger than 45, according to studies published Monday.

The findings, reached separately, came almost two years after Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi decided, based on early findings, that the VA would offer health care and other survivor benefits to Gulf War veterans with Lou Gehrig’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS. That marked the first time the government acknowledged a scientific link between service in the Gulf and a specific disease.

The VA study and one led by researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas appear today in Neurology, a peer-reviewed journal.

Always fatal, the disease causes the gradual death of nerve cells that control muscle movement and results eventually in paralysis and death. Its cause is unknown, and there remains no cure.

The VA found 40 veterans with the disease. The University of Texas center’s study found 20. Some cases may have overlapped as the Texas researchers did not have access to all records available to VA.

VA researchers found that military personnel deployed to the Gulf War region during the conflict stood twice the risk of suffering ALS compared with nondeployed military.

Members of the Army and Air Force had higher risk.

The Texas Southwestern study compared the number of cases of ALS in Gulf War veterans between 1991 and 1998 to the number of cases expected each year in the same age group — 45 or younger — in the general population.

From 1991 to 1994, the number of cases was no different from what would have been expected. But by 1998, the number was almost three times greater than what was expected.