Environmental health perspectives
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Environ. Health Perspect. · Jan 2012
Complex factors in the etiology of Gulf War illness: wartime exposures and risk factors in veteran subgroups.
At least one-fourth of U.S. veterans who served in the 1990-1991 Gulf War are affected by the chronic symptomatic illness known as Gulf War illness (GWI). Clear determination of the causes of GWI has been hindered by many factors, including limitations in how epidemiologic studies have assessed the impact of the complex deployment environment on veterans' health. ⋯ Findings support a role for a limited number of wartime exposures in the etiology of GWI, which differed in importance with the deployment milieu in which veterans served.