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Hospitalization rates among US Persian Gulf War veterans during the two years after the war were not higher than in a group of veterans who did not serve in the Persian Gulf. This was demonstrated by researchers who studied hospital data on 547,076 Persian Gulf veterans and 618,335 other veterans. Hospitalization rates were essentially similar in both groups. The Persian Gulf veterans had a higher incidence of certain diagnoses such as benign tumors, anemia and mental disorders. However, postwar stress and a delay in receiving health care could account for this difference.

Since the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991, veterans have reported diverse, unexplained symptoms. Some have wondered if their development of systemic lupus erythematosus, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or fibromyalgia might be related to Gulf War service. The authors used Cox proportional hazard modeling to determine whether regular, active-duty service personnel deployed to the Persian Gulf War (n = 551, 841) were at increased risk of postwar hospitalization with the three conditions compared with nondeployed Gulf War era service personnel (n = 1, 478, 704). All hospitalizations in Department of Defense facilities from October 1, 1988, through July 31, 1997, were examined. With removal of personnel diagnosed with any of the three diseases before August 1, 1991, and adjustment for multiple covariates, Gulf War veterans were not at increased risk of postwar hospitalization due to systemic lupus erythematosus (risk ratio (RR) = 0.94, 95% confidence interval (Cl): 0.65, 1.35). Because of the small number of cases and wide confidence limits, the data regarding amyotrophic lateral sclerosis were inconclusive. Gutf War veterans were slightly at risk of postwar hospitalization for fibromyalgia (RR = 1.23, 95% Cl: 1.05, 1.43); however, this risk difference was probably due to the Gulf War veteran clinical evaluation program beginning in 1994. These data do not support Gulf War service and disease associations. Am J Epidemiol 2000; 151: 1053-9. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A previous epidemiologic study demonstrated no unexplained increase in risk for postwar hospitalization among Gulf War veterans who had remained on active duty. The authors sought to expand this study to include Reserve and separated military personnel. They examined hospitalization data from the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and the California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development hospital systems for the years 1991–1994. Since denominator data were not available, the authors compared the proportional morbidrty ratios (PMRs) of hospitalization discharge diagnoses (both large categories and specific diagnoses) between Gulf War veterans and other veterans of the same era. There were no indications that Gulf War veterans were suffering increased PMRs for infectious diseases; neoplasms; endocrine diseases; blood diseases; skin conditions; or diseases of the nervous system, circulatory system, or musculoskeletal system. However, these veterans did experience proportionally more hospitalizations for various specific diagnoses, namely, fractures and bone and soft-tissue injuries (Department of Defense and California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development), various diseases of the respiratory (including asthma) and digestive systems (VA), and diverse symptom diagnoses (VA). While these findings may be influenced by change or by a number of potential confounders, including health registry participation, they merit further examination using other study designs. Am J Epidemiol 2000; 151:63–71. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Discusses the variety of symptoms which veterans of the Persian Gulf War, 1991 are experiencing from unexplained illnesses. Ascertainment of all active-duty United States (U.S.) military personnel deployed to the Persian Gulf War; Medical conditions of these deployed veterans; Consistency of the study population.

Since the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991, many veterans have sought medical evaluation in the Department of Veterans Affairs Persian Gulf Veterans' Health Registry (VA registry) or the Department of Defense's Comprehensive Clinical Evaluation Program (DoD registry). Using combined data collected from 1993 to 1997 from the VA and DoD registries, the authors compared the characteristics of registry participants (n = 74,653) with those of all Gulf War veterans (n = 696,531) to determine the personnel most likely to seek medical evaluation. Using multiple logistic regression, the authors found that service branch and type were strongly associated with registry participation, with Army (adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 4.7, 95% confidence interval (Cl) 4.6–4.9) and National Guard (OR = 2.6, 95% Cl 2.5–2.6) personnel at highest odds compared with reference category personnel. Registry participants also were more likely to have been stationed in the Gulf War theater during the fighting (OR = 2.2), to be older (>31 years/<22 years OR = 2.1), to have been an enlisted person (OR = 2.0), to have been construction workers (OR = 1.3), to be female (OR = 1.3), and to have been hospitalized during the 12-month period before the war (OR = 1.2). These findings are useful in generating hypotheses regarding postwar morbidity. They also suggest that subpopulations of Gulf War veterans have a higher prevalence of symptoms and merit further study. Am J Epidemiol 1998; 148:343–9. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A response from the author of the article "Birth Defects Among Children of Persian Gulf War Veterans" by David N. Cowan, Gregory C. Gray and Robert F. DeFraites in the 1998 issue is presented.