Printed in U.S.A. Resolving the Gulf War Syndrome Question

One central health question remains unanswered 7 years after the war with Iraq: Is there a "Gulf War syndrome"? Within a few months of returning home in 1991, some of the 750,000 Gulf War veterans from the United States, Great Britain, and Canada began com-plaining of fatigue, headaches, joint pains, sleep dis-turbances, cognitive difficulties, and other physical (somatic) symptoms (1). Approximately 1 year later, these diverse symptoms were conceptualized as a unique health problem, which has become the subject of intense scrutiny and controversy (2, 3). Greater than 10 percent of veterans have been clin-ically evaluated for illnesses possibly related to service in the Persian Gulf (4-7). Most of the illnesses re-ported by veterans were found to be caused by well