(91outcomes.com) - According to a news report in Australia's largest selling national newspaper, the Australian government is set to relook at whether Gulf War Syndrome is a unique health condition and its veterans due governmental assistance for their longstanding health issues.
According to the small piece in a broader news report about veterans benefits, Australia's government will reexamine its past decisions of whether Gulf War Syndrome meets, "the requirements of a unique disease or injury warranting government support."
In November 2008, a U.S. government report found that Gulf War Illness is a unique condition that affects between one-fourth and one-third of all veterans of the 1991 Gulf War and was likely caused by chemical exposures, with a long list of other factors not entirely ruled out.
In April 2010, a report by the prestigious Institute of Medicine, part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, found that chronic multisymptom illness affects an estimated 250,000 of the 697,000 Gulf War veterans, as well as other U.S. forces. The report went on to say that it was physiological and not psychological in nature, and that it likely resulted from the interplay between environmental and genetic causes.
According to the Australian War Memorial, "over 1,800 Australian Defence personnel were deployed in the Gulf War from August 1990 to September 1991. The force comprised units from the Army, Navy and RAAF. In addition Army and RAAF provided personnel to Operation Habitat."
The new review is being performed by Australia's Repatriation Medical Authority.
Australian Gulf War veterans have a Facebook page where news and information is shared, located at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Australian-Gulf-War-Veterans/107101696021694
-Anthony Hardie, 91outcomes.com
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