UK Daily Mail-GWS veterans have more difficulty conceiving

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14/07/04 - Health section

Gulf veterans 'find it more difficult to conceive'

Soldiers who served in the first Gulf War are more likely to experience

problems trying to have a baby compared with other servicemen, research

revealed today.

A study of more than 40,000 men found a small increased risk of

infertility among Gulf veterans. Pregnancies among Gulf soldiers and

their partners also took longer to conceive, according to the study

published on bmj.com.

The research came as an independent inquiry was under way to

investigate illnesses among those deployed to the Gulf during the 1991

conflict.

The Ministry of Defence, which funded the study, has always denied the

existence of a so-called Gulf War Syndrome, insisting there was no

single cause of the illnesses suffered by veterans of the war.

Support groups claim about 6,000 veterans have suffered unexplained ill

health since the conflict, and more than 600 are said to have died.

The latest study, by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and

Tropical Medicine, questioned 24,379 male Gulf veterans, matched with a

comparison group of 18,439 other servicemen.

The team, led by Noreen Maconochie, found that 732 Gulf veterans (7%)

and 370 other servicemen (5%) had been to see a doctor over fertility

concerns since the Gulf War.

Using information from the soldiers, the researchers calculated that

failure to achieve a conception was 2.5% for Gulf veterans compared

with 1.7% among non-Gulf veterans.

Failure to achieve a live birth was also higher among those who served

in the Gulf - 3.4% compared with 2.3%.

Among the planned pregnancies, Gulf veterans took longer to conceive -

9.1% took more than a year compared with 7.8% of non-Gulf veterans.

The researchers said that the effect did not decline with the amount of

time since the war.

And it was not affected by whether the men had had children before the

war or not.

Vaccines against anthrax and the plague, nerve agents from Iraqi

chemical weapons storage facilities, pesticides and exposure to

pollution from burning oil wells have been cited as possible causes of

ill health in Gulf veterans.

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©2005 Associated New Media

Meryl Nass, MD

Mount Desert Island Hospital

Bar Harbor, Maine 04609

207 288-5081 ext. 220