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Medical: WHAT IS REALLY BEHIND THE GULF WAR SYNDROME ?
Sunday, December 25 @ 18:13:58 UTC
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 by Yoker
14 years after the Gulf War I and still no progress in solving a problem which ruined the life of about 200 000 people. I hope this analysis starts - at least - real discussion about this problem.
1. What is Gulf War Syndrome?
GWS is a cluster of about 20 symptoms like: chronic fatigue, aching joints, memory loss, sleep problems, skin rashes, allergy, night sweets, depression. For the complete list see for example www.immed.org/signsympt.htm (second picture). A person with GWS usually develops several of them. GWS is very frequent (about 90%) among veterans who were the first ones to enter Kuwait and Iraq, but it is less frequent among people who entered Iraq later and is almost unknown among people who were not on Iraq soil, like ship crews.
2. What is NOT a GWS symptom: Cancer, leukaemia
3. Possible causes of GWS.
Following ones were suggested as possible causes of GWS:
(see for example: www.gulfwarvets.com/testimony_2.htm)
- Physical substances like particles from the smoke of burning oil wells or fine sand
- Vaccines (Anthrax vaccine for example)
- Chemical substances (insecticides, chemical weapons, detonated Iraqi chemical stores)
- Radiation (depleted uranium)
- Contagious disease
What about family members? Many of them have the same problems since veterans returned home. (See for example 2nd paragraph in: www.gulfwarvets.com/treatment2.htm) Are their problems caused by something else? This is impossible. In family members we can rule out "physical substances" and "vaccines" - they were not breathing smoke from burning oil wells or sand particles and got no vaccines.
What about "toxic chemical substances" and "radiation"? Some veterans say: "We took some souvenirs from Iraq". But there are several serious questions like:
How many veterans took a souvenir?
Were these souvenirs really contaminated?
How much were they contaminated?
Were all the sick family members in contact with such a souvenir?
People, who talk about chemical substances or radiation (like that ones with Depleted Uranium theory) as the cause of GWS ignore these questions. They also ignore that there is a big difference to have at home a contaminated 'souvenir' and living weeks or months in an environment where EVERYTHING is contaminated like this 'souvenir' - the amounts of chemicals / radiation they get are incomparable and so should be the health effects: family members should have only minor or no problems, but it is not so.
I hope you feel now that it is very unlikely that chemical substances or radiation caused GWS in family members.
The last possibility - contagious disease - can explain very simply what happened: during the first months in Iraq veterans got the disease and developed symptoms and when they returned home they infected their family members who developed these symptoms too.
4. Treatment of GWS
There are many people who talk about GWS and present theories, but there are few, who were successful in the treatment of sick veterans. Probably the best known is dr. Nicolson (www.immed.org). Also dr. Hyman was successful (see www.gulfwarvets.com/treat.htm). They have different theories, but they both use long-term antibiotic treatment. Many of their patients with GWS returned back to normal - see for example: www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/jamdox.html .
Because antibiotics have no effect in cases of intoxication or radiation, successful treatment with antibiotics is confirmation of contagious disease as the cause of GWS. We can even say what kind of disease it is: a bacterial one!
The sad thing is that people who recover usually develop GWS symptoms later again (1). It's no surprise this happens: they simply get the infection from their family members, or their treatment was not long enough to clear the infection from the body.
5. What disease is behind GWS symptoms ?
Dr. Nicolson says GWS is caused by mycoplasmas. They are/were present in about 50% of GWS veterans. Dr. Nicolson tests you for mycoplasmas and it seems, that you are/were accepted for treatment only if you test positive for them. This is a little strange: what about the rest of veterans who have not mycoplasmas? They have same symptoms, but a different disease? And there is one more problem with mycoplasmas: they usually need immune system to be impaired before they can invade the body.
Dr. Hyman does not test mycoplasmas, but "bacteria in urine". This means, that he probably accepts for treatment also people without mycoplasmas. And he is successful too!
Are there more diseases behind GWS? It does not seem to be likely, because there are not two (or more) different sets of GWS symptoms - anybody can develop any (new for him) symptom from the cluster of about 20. It's a quite common thing.
It seems that not mycoplasmas, but some other disease is responsible for GWS symptoms. It must be a contagious disease which impairs immune system. This can explain, why there is a delay between the development of GWS symptoms and development of mycoplasmal (and other) opportunistic infections: immune system must be impaired first and it takes some time. This also explains why antibiotic treatment is also effective for people without mycoplasmas and it also explains, why there is only one set of GWS symptoms.
Let us go back to GWS symptoms.
6. GWS and CFS
GWS was defined for the first time for Gulf War I veterans, but the same cluster of symptoms have people with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) - see for example Figure 1. in: www.gulfwarvets.com/article24.htm. It seems that GWS and CFS are caused by the same disease, but there are some differences:
A. It is quite sure that GWS is contagious, but CFS does not seem to be. People with CFS almost never have somebody with CFS among their family members, friends or co-workers.
B. Outbreak of so many GWS cases never happened to CFS, but cases when several people got CFS at the same time were very rarely reported.
C. Problems GWS veterans suffer from are usually a lot more serious than problems of people with CFS. (For example: People with CFS sometimes talk about suicide, but almost never commit it. Among people with GWS suicide is rather frequent.)
7. What happened during the Gulf War I ?
(Up to here everything was only facts. From here on it is also a little speculation to explain facts in the most simple and natural way.)
We already know, that GWS is a bacterial disease. Where it came from?
A. Endemic disease.There is nothing to support it: People in Iraq, Kuwait or SA have no such problems (2) and US soldiers, who are in Iraq now, do not suffer from GWS problems. And how to explain CFS?
B. New 'natural' disease.It does not seem to be a new disease, because it has the same set of symptoms like the disease which causes CFS. (Development of a new contagious disease is not an everyday event: it usually occurs once in many hundreds of years.)
C. A 'man-made' disease.This seems much more likely than previous options. They took a disease (probably the one which causes CFS) and modified it genetically. This could explain the higher morbidity of GWS - it was designed so. But there is another mystery, you are probably already thinking about: If GWS spreads to family members, why it usually does not spread to other people creating a GWS epidemic? Diseases change their properties (3), but could the change be so fast?
D. GWS is CFS.Iraqis decided to use the disease which causes CFS as a biological weapon. To prepare big amounts of the agent they spread it quickly from one being to another (maybe animals). When a disease spreads quickly its symptoms usually became more serious (4). This explains, why GWS symptoms are more serious than CFS symptoms. When the disease spread from veterans to family members, it was spreading again in its natural way, it means more slowly than in Iraqi laboratory. This explains why family members have usually less problems (5) and some of them are (or at least seem to be) healthy. As the infection spreads from veterans' family members to other people its morbidity decreases in every transmission: people have usually smaller and smaller problems. Only small part of infected people have big problems - usually diagnosed as CFS. This is why we see no GWS epidemic and why CFS does not seem to be contagious.
I think the last option explains best what happened.
8. The disease responsible for CFS/GWS symptoms
We are looking for a slowly developing bacterial disease which:
- Affects the nerve system in a very flexible way to explain the weird set of ever changing nerve problems like fatigue, pain, itching, or memory loss which come and go without any reason.
- Impairs immune system and allows opportunistic infections to develop.
The disease which fits best these criteria is leprosy.
9. Consequences
Because less than about 1% of the infected people are diagnosed as CFS patients, the disease behind CFS/GWS must be frequent in US/Europe. Where are all these infected people who are not diagnosed as CFS? There are several possibilities:
A. They have CFS symptoms, but for some reason they do not get CFS diagnose. (6)
B. Their CFS symptoms are not serious enough to get CFS diagnose.
C. They get a different diagnose: a disease with unknown cause, unreliable treatment and uncertain outlook. Some of diseases which fit these criteria: Allergy, Eczema, Asthma, Diabetes type 2 (7), Multiple Sclerosis, Psoriasis, Lupus.
D. They have (almost) no problems and can live normal life. (But - like all the infected people - they spread the infection.)
The disease behind CFS/GWS is probably the most frequent contagious disease in US/Europe. The Gulf War I veterans differ from the rest of the infected people only by severity of symptoms.
10. If it is leprosy, why we see no face deformations?
In Europe during the last 1000 years people with face deformations were effectively separated from the society. This stopped spreading of the types of leprosy which cause face deformations, but spreading of leprosy without face deformations was not restricted, because these people were usually not identified.
Just like people were prefering during thousands of years apple-trees with bigger apples to get apple-trees with big apples, we in Europe were prefering leprosy without face deformations and we got leprosy without face deformations. (4)
11. Why the disease behind CFS/GWS was not yet identified?
The disease behind CFS/GWS is a problem for a part of society and a menace for the rest of it, but for pharmaceutical companies and others who benefit from health care this disease is a large steady flow of income. As you may already know, companies are powerful enough to enforce what they want.
Anyway, in a society, where it seems that new diseases (8) are developed and released into the society this article should not be a big surprise.
12. What you can do
If you have problems that match CFS/GWS symptoms, you yourself (without the support of doctors) can test what was said here:
1. Leprosy impairs temperature sensitibility in finger tips. This can be tested by a simple test: Prepare one cup with cold water and other with warm water (about 50 degr. C). Ask somebody to take a small brush and sit by you. You must close your eyes(!) and he takes the brush, puts it to one of these cups and touches one of your finger tips. You have to say if it was cold or warm. This must be repeated several times. Health person answers immediately and correctly. If you are not quite sure your answer is immediate, try another part of finger - there the temperature sensibility is not impaired. This is a standard leprosy test.
2. Respire alcohol vapour (for example from boiling wine) about 10 minutes a day. This clears infection from respiratory tract and the nerve related problems (like fatigue) and secondary infections should disappear in few days. Allergy and skin problems remain. (Regular respiring of alcohol probably prevents spreading of the disease to other persons.) If you are successful, do not forget about other members of your family - even if they say they have no problems.
Reliable information about GWS:
www.immed.org - IMMED: The Institute for Molecular Medicine
www.gulfwarvets.com - American Gulf War Veterans Association (see other links here)
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NOTES:
(1) Dr. Nicolson was optimistic about the treatment of GWS in the mid 90ties, but since the GWS symptoms started to reappear after successful antibiotic treatment, he knew he was fighting a lost battle: antibiotic treatment cannot be effective when used for only one person surrounded by other sick people.
(2) I heard about people from Kuwait who had the same problems like GW veterans (they were looking for health care in US), but their problems also started after the beginning of Gulf War I.
(3) Properties of a disease can change. You probably know that syphilis started to spread in Europe in the 16th century. First it was a terrible disease, which destroyed the body during few years. Later it was less morbid and people lived 20, 30, or more years. Now about 50% of cases (in Europe) have no symptoms: these people are usually diagnosed by routine tests when accepted to hospital (accident, another disease or pregnancy).
(4) This is a too complex problem to be explained here. Please, study „The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer, or other, where Darwin theory is used to explain behaviour and properties of animals.
(5) Problems of veterans' family members are usually diagnosed as CFS.
(6) For example: They have CFS symptoms only short time (e.g. less than 6 months) - or - They have only one of CFS symptoms - or - They have previous psychiatric diagnose - or - Their doctor does not know CFS. CFS diagnose is different in each country and somewhere it is unknown.
(7) Leprosy and diabetes are the most frequent causes of loss of fingers and legs due to neurological problems. See for example National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/neuropathies/) for Diabetic Neuropathies.
(8) See for example L. Horowitz: The Avian Flu Fright is Politically Timed, www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20051012&articleId=1071
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