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Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Genetic Marker could be key to gulf illnesses
From: rsmith1996@aol.com (RSmith1996)
Date: 7 Oct 1996 23:35:55 -0400

               GENETIC MARKER COULD BE KEY TO GULF ILLNESSES
                  Scientists may have found common thread
                           Monday October 7, 1996

By Jim Abrams
Associated Press

Washington-- A California scientist says he had discovered genetic 
material common to Gulf War-era veterans that could provide a clue
as to why so many became sick after serving in the 1991 war.

Microbiologist Dr. Howard Urnovitz, in a study being presented Monday
to a conference of Gulf War veterans in Tampa, Fla., said the genetic
marker could point to the existence of a virus. The virus, in turn, could
make veterans exposed to chemical agents or other toxins more suspectible
to illness, he said.

The report came as the Pentagon is under increased pressure from Congress 
and veterans' groups to examine the extent of U.S. troop exposure to
chemical agents housed in a large Iraqi weapons arsenal blown up in March
1991.

The Pentagon denied until June this year that evidence existed showing
Americans were contaminated by Iraqi chemical or biological weapons. It
now acknowledges that up to 15,000 could have been exposed to the highly
toxic nerve agent sarin and to mustard gas at the Khamiseyah arsenal in
Southern Iraq.

Urnovitz, in an interview with The Associated Press, stressed Sunday that
what he has discovered are genetic sequences that may be related to the
enterovirus family but not the virus itself.  The large enterovirus family
ranges from viruses causing the common cold to those causing polio.

"All we've done is connect a big dot," he said. "We haven't solved the
puzzle."

But he said his study could be "terribly important" if it leads to
discovery
of a virus that could have put Gulf War veterans at substantially higher
risk of illness when exposed to chemical agents or other pollutants
common to a war environment.

Urnovitz said he found unique genetic bands in 29 of 36 veterans from
California and Arkansas who were deployed to the Gulf and in all eight 
Arkansas veterans tested who didn't serve in the Gulf. A random selection
of 22 nonmilitary civilians found the band in only one.

The eight soldiers who were not deployed appear healthy, indicating that
other factors related to service in the Gulf triggered an onset of
illness.

Military personnel are constantly exposed to solvents and chemicals, said 
James Tuite III, a former congressional investigator into the health
effects 
of the Gulf War illnesses.