Gulf War Illness - causes

Man, I was looking for extra information on how this topic is pertinent to GWS to prevent going off-topic, but there's just straight up nothing to be found but lawyers, who mostly stopped taking up lawsuits over Cipro due to futility. There's just absolutely no scientfic interest in this subject.

I'm curious though, how long did it take for your achilles tendon damages to set in? Because some people experience tendon tears after a *single* pill right the next day, and others such as me, stumble around for a few months after last adminstration without a care in a world, only to find out that three months later, a bomb suddenly went off in their bodies. And while I do have some poorly conceived ideas, there is absolutely no way whatsoever to predict a reaction like this, and honestly, I doubt there ever will be.

I developed ME/CFS a year later, and while there might not have been a direct causal relationship, I do believe that the neurotoxic, mitochondrial and endothelial damages from FQAD made me more susceptible to developing ME.
But yeah, you absolutely should be careful never to ingest another molecule of this garbage in your life. The damage is cumulative, and the fact that you just barely got away with a slap on the wrist (or the heel) the first time is highly indicative that next time, it likely wouldn't have ended well for you.

 

see https://www.s4me.info/threads/nature-when-antibiotics-turn-toxic.3602/#post-64213

 

My personal view on this is that we need to see some significant prevalence studies on “toxins”. Until then there will always be conspiracy theories of how some humans are poisoning others through ineptitude or us living in a non-utopian environment where air fresheners, herbicides, pesticides, lead in our water mobile phone masts etc etc ‘could’ be the source of a condition. These are so numerous and varied though i keep coming back to ‘why do some people get ME and others don’t’ (if the toxin was food or environmental). Perhaps the GWAS study will reveal something?

I am deeply suspicious of medical “experts” that claim that non provable environmental “toxins” are to blame for conditions..sounds like career building fluff to me...a bit like all the BMJ articles written by cardiologists about the causes of obesity.

the only way to lance the fake conspiracy and ill-informed crap from actual facts is to study it properly. Until then medical professionals should stick to provable medical facts not blame casting speculation.

having said all that, improving environmental standards has to be a good thing regardless of human health, but judicial use of pesticides etc may have to be balanced against gene editing and other methods ...you can’t grow and rear everything organically in small farmsteads (or whatever unrealistic utopian food supply-chain people think they want), there just isn’t the land space to feed everyone with that level of inefficiency. (Sorry for the mini rant at the end I’m overloaded with fake food news atm...too many idle hands with internet access.

 

My bet is on pesticides. In Scotland many people reported getting CFS after being exposed to sheep dip (anti flea / parasite agent for sheep). During the gulf war similar agents sprayed on soldiers to protect them from mosquites. Sounds like the same story to me.

In the early 2000's there were quite a few studies on the link between pesticides (organophosphates ) and ME/CFS. Seems like this lead has died down however, because they found evidence that GWI and sheep dip-induced CFS have a different aetiology than ME/CFS.

Here's one study that compared the 3 groups and found differences:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14503920/

 

Just been repeated on BBC radio 4 at 8.09am on 11th May that researchers have found that Gulf War illness was triggered by exposure to Sarin gas in those with a specific genetic difference.

 

re,....'deeply suspicious of medical “experts” that claim that non provable environmental “toxins” are to blame for conditions..sounds like career building fluff to me...."

Please read following; Sent to HoL last year and to NICE Vice chair.......

Professor Steven Holgate was recently knighted. He was involved in this research which links agricultural pesticides to altered gene expression and ME and CFS.


https://jcp.bmj.com/content/61/6/730.full

Seven genomic subtypes of chronic fatigue syndrome/myalgic encephalomyelitis: a detailed analysis of gene networks and clinical phenotypes

CFS/ME subtype, we determined those genes whose expression differed significantly from ... nervous system, OP-modified NTE initiates neurodegeneration. ... Harrison TJ, Wilkinson RJ, Tyrrell DA, Holgate ST, Kerr JR.
Please use your influence to help us here.

'We all know that particulates are highly damaging to human Health.

The paper Perspective: Cell danger response Biology-The new science that connects environmental health with mitochondria and the rising tide of chronic illness - Robert K. Naviaux was referred to by Baroness Finlay in support for amendment 11 in September’s debate. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567724919302922
Please follow the science (and learn from current modelling & evidence)..'


FYI
Dear Member of the House of Lords,

I watched with keen interest to the debate and was encouraged to hear fine words about amendment 11 in September.
I was also encouraged by the vote of 212 for the amendment.

I do hope Labour are not considering turning on a critical public health issue at this juncture, failing us during the pandemic which is teaching us all so much but most importantly denying every children’s right, that is, “The right to be born into a healthy environment”.

Air Pollution comes in many guises and forms.

We all know that particulates are highly damaging to human Health.The paper Perspective: Cell danger response Biology-The new science that connects environmental health with mitochondria and the rising tide of chronic illness - Robert K. Naviaux was referred to by Baroness Finlay in support for amendment 11 in September’s debate. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567724919302922
Please follow the science (and learn from current modelling & evidence)

I have lived in a beautiful but ‘toxic’ environment impacted by agriculture for 44 years.
Despite indisputable medical and research evidence of risks and harm from pesticides in the air, resulting in development of many long term conditions, I very concerned that rural residents, like me, continue not to be afforded any protection from the spraying of agricultural pesticides on crops.

When gardens like mine are impacted next to sprayed crops, the visible damage to gardens following spraying, (see below recent damage to walnut and roses) show that residents like me, are equally impacted and therefore are effectively being treated like collateral damage.

It is understandable why this Tory Government would reject & seek to avoid this public health risk and liability but there is no excuse for Labour to fail to work in the public interest. It’s a no brainer.

Air Pollution comes in many guises and forms. We all know that particulates are highly damaging to human Health. The paper Perspective: Cell danger response Biology-The new science that connects environmental health with mitochondria and the rising tide of chronic illness - Robert K. Naviaux was referred to by Baroness Finlay in support for amendment 11 in September’s debate. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567724919302922

I coordinate a group to support those affected by chronic ill health, especially ME and CFS and am a National Institute for Health and Care Excellence stakeholder for a national Group.

 

Yes, the BBC story is quite strange, because it doesn't seem to link to a newly published paper. And no other outlet is running with this 'story'....

 

'King's Centre for Military Health Research 15 Year Report - summary of our scientific work'

https://www.academia.edu/2386138/Ki..._Year_Report_-_summary_of_our_scientific_work


September 2010


Page 15:

“We conclude that it is difficult to see how further direct research on Gulf veterans will provide much more in the way of relevant information concerning what happened in 1991. Likewise, after 20 years we don’t expect to learn much more about the direct causes of ill health.

Much relevant information wasn’t collected, and is not going to be found now. However, researching other populations may shed some light, and animal studies will continue to provide controlled data in a way that human studies cannot.

But does that mean that we should abandon research into Gulf veterans? Not at all. There is still a need to try and understand the causes of disability and disadvantage in Gulf veterans. We have suggested looking at Gulf War illness in a similar fashion to the way we think about illnesses such as CFS, irritable bowel syndrome and other unexplained syndromes, and to think more about why veterans are either staying ill or not getting better, putting to one side the vexed question of what started the problem in the first place”


KCMHR is led by Professor Simon Wessely who is the Vice Dean, Academic Psychiatry, Teaching and Training at the IoPPN and also heads the Department of Psychological Medicine, and Professor Christopher Dandeker in the Department of War Studies is co-director.


@dave30th

 

They are now talking about being believed, pain, fibromyalgia, CFS and long Covid, which was introduced as a topic by the presenter by them referring to the ("previous") dismissal of Gulf War illness and the findings about the nerve agent (Woman's hour)

 

Fantastic programme and articulate Dr who said of Long Covid- all the things we know to be true about ME!

https://twitter.com/user/status/1524321512068685824

How are medical diagnoses formed? And how can they be influenced by factors like bias, the media or patient-led campaigns? We discuss with
@Jules_Montague
, author of The Imaginary Patient: How Diagnosis Gets Us Wrong: https://bbc.in/3M8eY2P

Jules Montague on diagnosis, and other topics
Woman's Hour
In former consultant neurologist Jules Montague's new book, The Imaginary Patient, she looks at how they can be influenced by many external factors. Who gets to choose which conditions are "real" or not, and is that a helpful question to ask? And what implications does that have for women? She joins Emma.

 

A diagnosis - the label we give to a disease - is supposed to offer certainty: a system for classifying and treating sickness, valid across time and space, and uncomplicated by value judgements or monetary concerns. Yet, as Jules Montague knows from years of working with patients in several countries, the practice is tainted by the forces of imperialism, politics, discrimination and Big Pharma. At their worst, diagnostic labels can do active harm to patients. Drawing on meticulous research and deep personal insight, Montague delves into historical diagnoses that have become extinct, and into modern maladies - from PTSD to oppositional defiant disorder to excited delirium - and explores whether they too may prove not to be true diagnostic labels at all. Eye-opening and urgent, this book reveals the heart-breaking, thought-provoking stories of real people living and dying in the shadow of their diagnoses.

 

Reply tweet to me from Jules who writes i Lancet it seems.....
@Jules_Montague
Writer & Neurologist. Guardian|BBC|Lancet. Visiting Lecturer Beira, Mozambique.

 

I've done a thread:
https://twitter.com/user/status/1524319159169044481


I think the reason this has been "known for a while now" is because it is damn complicated! It's very easy for minimisers to minimise - and boy will they be trying right now.

The full paper is here: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP9009

From my quick deep dive today, I initially thought the same, but Haley has spent years (decades) carefully establishing the pathological pathways, toxicology and epidemiology. This paper helps lock it into place. It's an impressive piece of work.

There's a commentary here: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP11057

 

From Professor Robert Haley's evidence to the 2004 UK Independent Gulf War Illness Inquiry (The Lloyd Inquiry) on Tuesday 3rd August 2004. The Lloyd Inquiry site, with transcripts of all the witnesses evidence, is unfortunately no longer online.


Professor Robert Haley: …..“Studies using nonspecific definitions of Gulf War neurological syndrome are biased toward finding negative results. Early in the history of Gulf War illness research, around 1993, a decision was made in the government to the effect that “there is no Gulf War syndrome,” and this led to pressure on researchers who wanted government funding not to use a case definition of the illness in their research. Without at least a provisional case definition, however, it is virtually impossible to design studies that will elucidate the nature of the illness, or illnesses, and connect them with causes. This unfortunate government decision is arguably the main reason for the delay in progress in this research field.

Finally, when a few studies bucked the policy and used provisional case definitions successfully to make promising discoveries, research groups that had performed expensive population surveys without a case definition in mind attempted either to prove that no case definition was possible or to concoct case definitions after the fact from data collected earlier, even when the collected data were insufficient for defining a case definition.


The most important example of the unproductive use of a nonspecific case definition concocted after the fact was the series of studies from the Kings College London group. In place of a case definition describing the disease that veterans were complaining of, they defined Gulf War illness as having a score of greater than 72.2 on the SF-36 questionnaire, which measures functional impairment regardless of the cause. This case definition essentially counted veterans as having Gulf War illness if they had any condition that caused them to feel bad. Consequently, many veterans with diseases other than Gulf War neurological syndrome that made them feel bad were mistakenly counted as cases, and conversely, many with typical symptoms of Gulf War neurological syndrome but who were not very ill with it were not counted as cases. This severe degree of bidirectional misclassification has caused all studies from the Kings College London group to reach spuriously negative conclusions.”