Gulf war veteran diagnosed with pernicious anemia

I am a Gulf War Vet who has made complaints since 1991 about chronic fatigue, memory loss, muscle weakness, arthirtis, GI probs. When I twice turned to the VA they did no testing and wanted to blame psychological. I then went to my family doctor and was diagnosed with Pernicious anemia. My question is, is this something a lot of GW vets are experiencing?

[Garth L Nicolson, PhD]

When we performed our studies on sick Gulf War veterans (including family members who became sick after the vet returned to the home), we found that about one-half were infected with Mycoplasma fermentans (similar to Lyme patients were over 70% also have this co-infection).  Although we found other infections as well in these patients, nothing approached the prevalence that we found with M. fermentans.  When family members became sick after the return of the vet to the home (adults with CFS, children with ASD), they also had the same infection as the veterans.  The same thing happened to their pets.  We concluded that about one-half of Gulf War Illness cases could be explained by this one infections alone, and these patients (veterans and civilians) slowly responded to doxycycline plus supplement support.

Unfortunately, the VA and DoD stonewalled this from the beginning, and even designed a fatally flawed clinical trial (with only 65% compliance) to prove their point.  However, over the years we were able to help thousands of veterans recover from their illnesses.  Recently the VA has decided to reverse their stand on M. fermentans, at least in some VAMC, and they now recognize the importance of treating M. fermentans cases. Ironically, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology knew all along about this and the danger that it presented for Armed Forces personnel, but this never got translated to VA care.

You can find out more about this on our website, www.immed.org under Gulf War Illness Research.