The study did find a statistically significant elevation in the number of traffic accidents Gulf War veterans had. An April 1998 article in Emerging Infectious Diseases similarly found no increased rate of hospitalization and better health on average for veterans of the Persian Gulf War in comparison to those who stayed home.In contrast to those early studies, in January 2006, a study led by Melvin Blanchard published in the Journal of Epidemiology, part of the "National Health Survey of Gulf War-Era Veterans and Their Families", found that veterans deployed in the Persian Gulf War had nearly twice the prevalence of chronic multisymptom illness, a cluster of symptoms similar to a set of conditions often at that time called Gulf War Syndrome. On November 17, 2008, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans Illnesses (RAC), a Congressionally mandated federal advisory committee composed of VA-appointed clinicians, researchers, and representative Gulf War veterans, issued a major report announcing scientific findings, in part, that "Gulf War illness is real", that GWI is a distinct physical condition, and that it is not psychological in nature. The 454 page report reviewed 1,840 published studies to form its conclusions identifying the high prevalence of Gulf War illness, suggesting likely causes rooted in toxic exposures while ruling out combat stress as a cause, and opining that treatments likely could be found.
This is true for ferritin levels and iron levels in the organs as well, it is important for patients to go regularly for transfusions in order to maximize good health, normal ferritin levels run anywhere between 24 and 336 ng/ml, hematologists generally do not begin chelation therapy until ferritin levels reach at least 1000 ng/ml. It is more important to check iron levels in the organs through MRI scans, however, than to simply get regular blood tests to check ferritin levels, which only show a trend, and do not reflect actual organ iron content. Gene therapy
Gene therapy, as well as, bone marrow transplant are also possible treatments for the disorder, but each have their own risks at this point in time. Bone marrow transplantation is the more used method between the two, whereas researchers are still trying to definitively establish the results of gene therapy treatment. It generally requires a 10/10 HLA matched donor, however, who is usually a sibling. As most patients do not have this, they must rely on gene therapy research to potentially provide them with an alternative. CDA at both clinical and genetic aspects are part of a heterogeneous group of genetic conditions. Gene therapy is still experimental and has largely only been tested in animal models until now.