A study has found a possible link between antibodies used in experimental vaccines and unexplained illnesses afflicting thousands of military personnel who served in the Gulf War. The Tulane University Medical School study found high levels of antibodies to squalene in a large percentage of sick veterans vaccinated for Gulf War service. Pentagon officials dismiss the study as flawed and say none of the vaccines administered during the Gulf War contained squalene.

But in response to congressional pressure, the Defense Department late last month asked the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board to review the study. The National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine also is reviewing the research and assessing what, if any role squalene may play in Gulf illnesses.

Squalene is a cholesterol-builder in humans and also is found in vegetable oils, shark liver oil, cosmetics and various health supplements. The Defense Department and National Institutes of Health in the late 1980s began researching the use of squalene in vaccines in an effort to make vaccines more effective.

Defense officials told the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, that they considered - but decided against - using vaccines with squalene during the Gulf War. The study found that all but two of 38 sick veterans who served in the Gulf and received at least one vaccination had elevated squalene antibodies. Another six sick veterans who were vaccinated but did not go to the Gulf produced similar results, according to the study. Those results were blinded, meaning the researchers did not know the source of blood samples.

The research "sets off alarm bells" that should prompt more investigation into Gulf War vaccines and the safety of vaccines that contain squalene. The results may not point to vaccines containing squalene but that veterans could have produced the antibodies as the result of receiving so many vaccines at one time, or from some other organism in a vaccine that may mimic squalene. The Pentagon says an estimated 90,000 troops who served in the Gulf War complain of illnesses such as fatigue, skin rashes, headaches and muscle and joint pain. Defense officials have not ruled out pesticides, stress and pyridostigmine bromide, an experimental drug given to troops to protect against the nerve agent soman, as possible contributors to some of the illnesses.

Experimental and Molecular Pathology February 2000