WASHINGTON – A mortality study by scientists of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) concerning veterans who served near the Iraqi munitions dump at Khamisiyah during the Gulf War demonstrated no substantial increase in deaths nor any unusual causes of death.
The study began after another VA report in February suggested a dramatic increase in deaths among a group of about 35,000 veterans serving in the Gulf area during the war.
"I regret if that earlier report caused alarm," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi. "We're in the business of providing information to veterans as soon as we can. In this instance, some information was released before being properly scrutinized and scientifically validated."
On Feb. 21, VA employees held a briefing for veterans service organizations in Washington. The briefing included information that suggested a ten-fold increase in the death rate among one group of veterans who were identified as being near the Khamisiyah munitions depot, which contained chemical weapons, when U.S. forces destroyed it on March 10, 1991.
However, the most recent in-depth VA study, based upon more current data, matched death records with the Social Security numbers of 134,379 veterans whom the Department of Defense said may have been exposed to chemical weapons at Khamisiyah.
The latest study found 368 deaths that weren't included in the February report, plus 650 deaths that were attributed earlier to the wrong group of veterans. When the two errors were combined, they dramatically distorted the mortality pattern among Khamisiyah veterans.
"The bottom line is that Khamisiyah veterans have death rates similar to their non-exposed counterparts and less than half the rate of their civilian counterparts," Principi said.
The latest study was based upon current information and a larger, more comprehensive pool of data from the National Death Index, compiled by the NationalCenter for Health Statistics. The February report involved matching VA records and DoD rosters of service members notified that they were exposed to two different models of the chemical "plume" from Khamisiyah.
