Pesticide Potpourri

PESTICIDES LINKED TO GULF WAR ILLNESS

(ENS) In his final report for the Clinton administration, the Defense Department’s special assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, Dr. Bernard Rostker, said that pesticides, not exposure to depleted uranium (DU), may be “among the potential contributing agents” to illnesses among Gulf War veterans, who suffer health problems including paralysis, children with birth defects, semen that burns partners, nausea, chronic fatigue, and more.

The US used DU munitions and tank armor for the first time during the 1990-91War. The greatest potential for medically significant DU exposure occurred with veterans in or on tanks when the vehicles were hit by DU munitions and in veterans who worked in or on US vehicles or sites contaminated with DU, the Pentagon says. But a study commissioned by the Department of Defense, “did not find a plausible link” between DU and health problems, Dr. Rostker said.

Researchers said 64 different pesticide products containing 35 active ingredients were used during the War. The survey considered 12 active pesticide ingredients that Gulf War veterans were exposed to: five organophosphates, three carbamates, two pyrethroids, one organochlorine, and one repellent, DEET.

In addition to repellents, fly baits, pest strips, and area sprays, the general military population was exposed to pesticides applied in the field as sprayed liquids, sprayed powders, or fogging pesticides. Dr. Ross Anthony of Rand said the survey points to pesticides in a class known as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors as being linked to the symptoms of Gulf War illness.

The survey found that 31 percent of the veterans questioned had used more than one pesticide, and nine percent of the population used three or more. One third of those surveyed did not use pesticides, and about another third used only one.

Interactions between the pesticides and other chemicals to which veterans were exposed during the Gulf War, in particular to pyridostigmine bromide (PB) pills, used to guard against nerve agents, the nerve agents themselves, and solvents might also be responsible for the illnesses. “We did not actually look at interactions of these chemicals,” Dr. Anthony said.

Captain Joyce Riley, a trained flight nurse who reentered the Air Force Reserve in 1991, says Gulf War illnesses are the result of biological weapons provided by the US to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as late as 1989. “They were used on our troops,” said Riley, who became ill after six months of active duty missions on a C-130 aircraft.

“The basic fact is that biological agents were used on our troops,” she says. “Chemical agents were used on our troops. Germ warfare was used on our troops, using biologicals that were made in the United States of America. It was made in Houston, Texas and Boca Raton, Florida. It was passed through the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and through companies such as American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) in Maryland,” she says. “Our troops did not know what to expect, nor were they protected. We later found out that we had no adequate biological-chemical detection capability,” Riley said.

The possibility that germ warfare was perpetrated on US troops was not studied in these most recent reviews.

The environmental exposure and health risk assessment report is available online at: http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/pest/ The Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses is online at: http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/ The American Gulf War Veterans Association website can be found at: http://www.gulfwarvets.com/about.htm.