Government Studies On Gulf War Syndrome Flawed, Researchers Say

Government Studies On Gulf War Syndrome Flawed, Researchers Say

DALLAS (August 11, 1998 2:36 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com) -- An epidemiologist says three influential government studies that cast doubt on the existence of Gulf War syndrome are seriously flawed.

In response to Robert Haley's report Tuesday in the American Journal of Epidemiology, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the Defense Department has ordered a review of the government's research.

The three studies, published in 1996 and 1997, found that Gulf War veterans did not have higher rates of postwar death, hospitalization or birth defects among their children than did other veterans of the same period.

But Haley said the researchers erred in their statistical analysis and allowed the studies to bias one another.

"The conclusions they reached are not supported by their data," said Haley, chief of epidemiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

Instead, he said he believes that Gulf War veterans have experienced substantial increases in deaths and hospitalizations and that the previous research has not ruled out an increase in birth defects as well.

Haley is part of a research team at UT Southwestern that previously concluded that some Gulf War veterans suffer from distinct symptom clusters caused by chemical poisoning, not post-traumatic stress disorder or other psychological problems. Last year, he published a study that suggested some veterans may suffer neurological damage from nerve gas or pesticides.

The authors of the original studies defended their work in articles Tuesday alongside Haley's.

"We believe Dr. Haley's assertions are unwarranted and unlikely explanations for our findings," wrote Han K. Kang and Tim Bullman, who researched deaths among Gulf War veterans.

In his critique, Haley said that in one instance, the researchers did not account for the fact that soldiers sent to war would be healthier than those who were not.

He also said government researchers overstated the role that chance played in the differences they found.

In addition, Haley said that during the government's research of birth defects, records from non-military hospitals were not obtained, making the reported number unreliable.

By MELISSA WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer