The U.S Congress has made significant and continuing investment in DoDs Gulf War illness treatment research, with $129 million appropriated for the GWIRP between federal fiscal years (FY) 2006 and 2016. The funding has risen from $5 million in FY2006, to $20 million each year from FY2013 through FY2017, and to $21 million for FY2018. Prognosis
According to the May 2018 DoD publication cited above, "Research suggests that the GWI symptomology experienced by Veterans has not improved over the last 25 years, with few experiencing improvement or recovery ... . Many [Gulf War] Veterans will soon begin to experience the common co-morbidities associated with aging. The effect that aging will have on this unique and vulnerable population remains a matter of significant concern, and population-based research to obtain a better understanding of mortality, morbidity, and symptomology over time is needed." Prevalence
The 2008 and 2014 VA (RAC) reports and the 2010 IOM report found that the chronic multisymptom illness in Gulf War veterans—Gulf War illness—is more prevalent in Gulf War veterans than their non-deployed counterparts or veterans of previous conflicts. While a 2009 study found the pattern of comorbidities similar for actively deployed and nondeployed Australian military personnel, the large body of U.S. research reviewed in the VA and IOM reports showed the opposite in U.S. troops.
Other causes that have been investigated are sarin, cyclosarin, and emissions from oil well fires, but their relationship to the illness is not as clear.Studies have consistently indicated that Gulf War syndrome is not the result of combat or other stressors and that Gulf War veterans have lower rates of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) than veterans of other wars.According to a 2013 report by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, veterans of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may also have Gulf War syndrome, though later findings identified causes that would not have been present in those wars.In 2022, researchers led by Robert Haley, MD at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found that exposure to sarin nerve gas in soldiers who had a particular genetic mutation that prevented them from breaking down the nerve gas is likely to be responsible for the syndrome. The findings and an editorial by two leading epidemiologists were published in Environmental Health Perspectives. Signs and symptoms
According to an April 2010 U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) sponsored study conducted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, 250,000 of the 696,842 U.S. servicemen and women in the 1991 Gulf War continue to be affected by chronic multi-symptom illness, which the IOM now refers to as Gulf War illness. The IOM found that it continued to affect these veterans nearly 20 years after the war.