A report presented to Congress on Monday states that "Gulf War illness is real." The 450-page report was commissioned by Congress in 2002, when it assembled a group of scientists and veterans to study symptoms that doctors were seeing in veterans of the 1990-1991 Gulf War.
The report, presented to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake Monday morning by the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses, stated that Gulf War illness is present in at least 25% of the 697,000 veterans of the war.
Symptoms of the illness include headaches, skin rashes, diminished memory and concentration abilities, and many other respiratory, digestive and neurological problems.
The extensive report included probable causes of these symptoms, treatment recommendations, and an assessment of previous research done on the illness.