"In our earlier studies when we found strong statistical links between Gulf War syndrome and veterans' reports of exposure to combinations of chemicals like pesticides and low-level chemical nerve agents, we predicted it might be due to a PON-Q deficiency, and now that's what we have found," Haley said. "The sick veterans in our study have low PON-Q levels in their blood, and the well ones have high PON-Q levels.
"We have found a genetic marker that appears to explain what made many of these veterans sick."
In 1997, Haley and a group of other UT Southwestern researchers published a set of three scientific papers in The Journal of the American Medical Association, which concluded that some veterans suffer from brain damage caused by exposure to various combinations of chemicals during the Gulf War.
They linked three different neurological syndromes to the use of pesticide-containing flea collars, highly concentrated insect repellant and pyridostigmime bromide anti-nerve gas tablets, as well as exposure to low-level chemical nerve agents.
The current study examined the same group of men, members of the 24th Naval Mobile Construction Battalion, used in the 1997 studies. Because these studies were conducted in a single battalion of naval reservists, Haley and colleagues have planned a nationwide survey to see how strongly the new neurotoxicity syndromes are associated with low-level PON-Q enzyme levels in a random sample of Gulf War-era veterans.
Haley, who has been researching Gulf War syndrome since 1994, has published more than 100 scientific papers. He is an associate professor of internal medicine with a specialty in epidemiological research.
La Du, a professor of pharmacology and anesthesiology, is an expert on the genetics of enzymes that destroy chemical toxins, including the PON family of enzymes. Billecke performed the laboratory work.
The Department of Defense and the Perot Foundation provided funding for the
study.
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Contact: Mindy Warren
melinda.warren@email.swmed.edu
214-648-3404
UT Southwestern Medical Center
16-Jun-1999