I remember hearing about the Gulf War Syndrome when I was a kid. There were fears Iraq had employed chemical weapons that were causing things like chronic fatigue, rashes, hair loss, muscle pain, and neurological / neuropsychological signs. We had won the war, but there seemed to be fear in the back of everyone’s minds that the worst was yet to come.
Then, it disappeared. I didn’t hear anything about it. I was young and not particularly active in seeking out news on this sort of thing, but clearly I would have heard something if it turned out hundreds of thousands of soldiers were suffering from the effects of chemical weapons.
On the contrary, it appears people still don’t know what the deal is. Some people think the whole thing is made up. The government’s website says the evidence is unclear, but a huge report released in 2008 by the federally mandated Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses states: 25% of the 697,000 Persian Gulf veterans have the condition and the evidence leaves no question “Persian Gulf War illness is a real condition with real causes and serious consequences for affected veterans.”
One interesting portion of the government report is more than 25 pages investigating vaccines and vaccine adjuvants. There is a good amount of information there on one of these adjuvants: squalene. Apparently, a number of studies have been done investigating the correlation between squalene antibodies and Gulf War Syndrome issues – most notably one in 2000 by Dr. Asa and Tulane University. The government report notes many points that both support and detract from the correlation in that study, but in the end still concludes:
The Asa/Tulane studies may have correctly identified excess rates of squalene antibodies in ill veterans, whether or not they were caused by vaccines, by vaccine contamination, or by clandestine use of an unapproved adjuvant. It is important to determine whether the observed association between squalene antibodies and Gulf War illness is supported, or refuted, by more definitive research.
Now that the swine flu vaccine is making the rounds, people are taking different positions on the use of squalene. Canada has included squalene in their H1N1 vaccines – and some there are making the claim that the squalene links to the Gulf War Syndrome “have been shown to be false.” I found conflicting information on whether or not there will be squalene in the U.S.-distributed vaccines, but it’s clear some think it could make the vaccine more dangerous than the flu it is supposed to protect against.
And then you have the World Health Organization saying things like, “The absence of significant vaccine-related adverse events following [over 22 million] doses suggests that squalene in vaccines has no significant risk.” With so many potential long-term adverse effects (e.g., arthritis, alzheimers, diabetes) and without studies available, how can they feel comfortable making that sort of claim? (It reminds me of an insert I recently read the insert accompanying a diptheria/tetanus vaccine, where the practitioner was advised of many potentially serious side effects – and to not administer the vaccine if the patient had experienced any of them in the past. That’s it. Where does that leave those being vaccinated for the first time? And what if the serious consequences take longer than a few months to show themselves?)
Maybe I’m missing something, but it seems to me the door is still very much open…
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