ScienceDaily (Aug. 17, 1998) — DALLAS -- August 11, 1998 -- Gulf War veterans have died or been hospitalized at excessive rates since the war, a UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas researcher reports in the Aug. 15 American Journal of Epidemiology. The new findings by Dr. Robert Haley, UT Southwestern's chief of epidemiology, contradict government studies which he dissected.

"In the studies, because of methodological problems, the government researchers came to conclusions at variance with what the data show," Haley said. "By using the researchers' own statistics but compensating for the studies' flaws, it becomes clear Gulf War veterans have significant postwar excess of hospitalization and death."

These findings are the latest for Haley, who has been investigating the illnesses of Gulf War veterans since 1994. His ongoing research is based on his team's findings that some veterans suffer from neurological damage caused by wartime exposure to combinations of chemicals. Those findings were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in January 1997 and disagree with the three government studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1996 and 1997.

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