BMJ  2003;327:766 (4 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7418.766-b

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Veterans of the first Gulf war are developing amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Owen Dyer

London

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

US veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war are twice as likely as the general public to develop amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a type of motor neurone disease. This is a finding of two studies published in the current issue of the journal Neurology ( 2003; 61: 742-9, 750-6)[Abstract/Free Full Text].

US troops in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf crisis, 1990

Credit: SIPA/REX

The condition, known in the United States as Lou Gehrig's disease (after the baseball player who was the most famous person to have developed it), remains extremely rare among Gulf war veterans, but the rate of diagnosis has been climbing faster in recent years, suggesting a delayed effect that may become more apparent over time.

The first of the two studies, which was sponsored by the US Department of Veterans' Affairs, compared rates of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in service personnel deployed to south west Asia with rates of . . . [Full text of this article]


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