Bone and the Gulf War
- MSRG, Stopford Building, University of Manchester Medical School, Manchester M13 9PT, UK
- Correspondence to: Professor T Freemont, MSRG, Stopford Building, University of Manchester Medical School, Manchester M13 9PT, UK; tony.freemont{at}man.ac.uk
Oesteoblasts—possible victims of the Gulf War?
Compston and her colleagues have a deserved international reputation for their studies of bone turnover and altered bone cell function in skeletal disease. Recently, they have been approached to undertake studies of bone in groups of individuals concerned about the possible harmful effects on their bone of exposure to environmental toxins. The paper published in this journal1 describes the results of an examination of bone from 17 veterans of the Gulf War and follows relatively shortly after a paper published in 1999 looking at the bone of farm workers exposed to organophosphate insecticides.2
A proportion of Gulf War veterans from several countries including the USA, Canada, and the UK complain of a variety of symptoms such as fatigue, lack of sleep, depression, cognitive problems, rashes, bone aches, lassitude, lack of motivation, forgetfulness, mood changes, irritability, and diarrhoea. If these symptoms sound …
