Cover: A Review of the Scientific Literature as it Pertains to Gulf War Illnesses

A Review of the Scientific Literature as it Pertains to Gulf War Illnesses

Volume 5: Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents

by William Augerson

Download

Full Document

FormatFile SizeNotes
zip file 1.1 MB

The file(s) provided above are ZIP-formatted archives, which most modern systems can natively unpack. If your computer does not unpack the archive when you double-click it, you may need to use a separate decompression program such as UnZip.

Purchase

Purchase Print Copy

 FormatList Price Price
Add to Cart Paperback316 pages $30.00 $24.00 20% Web Discount

That Iraq had already used chemical warfare agents led coalition forces to take protective action. Yet many Gulf War veterans have reported a host of symptoms that could be construed as coming from exposure to chemical or biological weapons. The scientific literature on the effects of exposure to such agents suggests the following: Militarily effective doses of any of the agents reviewed would have produced severe health effectsthat would have required clinical treatment or resulted in death. However, since low-level exposures could have produced mild clinical signs that could have been overlooked or misinterpreted, it is not possible to rule out low-dose exposures to one or several classes of agents or the possibility of some resultant contribution to some of the symptoms Gulf War veterans have experienced. Still, it is difficult to believe that exposures affecting largenumbers of persons would escape clinical recognition. Further, no references in the literature report clinical symptoms developing years after exposure, as was the case in about 50 percent of the health problems Gulf War veterans have reported.

Table of Contents

  • Preface

  • Figures

  • Tables

  • Summary

  • Foreword and Acknowledgments

  • Glossary

  • Chapter One

    Introduction

  • Chapter Two

    Overview of Chemical and Biological Warfare

  • Chapter Three

    Skin-Damaging Agents

  • Chapter Four

    Toxins

  • Chapter Five

    Nerve Agents

  • Chapter Six

    Conclusions and Recommendations

  • Appendix A

    Dose and Exposure Characterizations

  • Appendix B

    Data on Nerve Agents

  • Appendix C

    Survey of C-fos

  • Bibliography

This research was sponsored by the RAND National Security Research Division and RAND Health.

This report is part of the RAND Corporation Monograph report series. The monograph/report was a product of the RAND Corporation from 1993 to 2003. RAND monograph/reports presented major research findings that addressed the challenges facing the public and private sectors. They included executive summaries, technical documentation, and synthesis pieces.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited; linking directly to this product page is encouraged. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial purposes. For information on reprint and reuse permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.