Here are the results of the very latest government research on MCS and CFSamong Gulf War veterans. These data were presented Oct 10, 1998 at the AACFS meeting in Boston by Dr. Kang of the VA based on a huge VA questionnaire study of randomly selected deployed and non-deployed Gulf War era vets
who are no longer on active duty.

non-deployed (9,761 surveyed), MCS = 4.6%, CFS= 1.1%
deployed (11,216 surveyed), MCS = 14.9%, CFS= 5.8%

Note that these huge percentages are not from the self-selected VA Registry population (where rates of MCS and CFS are even higher, at 36% and 16%, respectively, according to VA research presented at the ACS meeting in August), but from a random sample of all vets who were active during the Gulf War era, whether or not in the VA Registry.

These percentages apply to the ENTIRE population of "Gulf War era veterans" in the United States !!! In other words, for every 100,000 veterans who went to the Gulf, 14,900 now have MCS.

Assuming about 500,000 of the total deployed are now no longer active (ie. are now in the VA population), this means there are at least 75,000 Gulf War vets with MCS in the VA system. But VA has still not yet formally diagnosed or treated a single case !!!

Even more incredible is that 4,600 of every 100,000 who were active at the time but did NOT go to the Gulf also have MCS, which is a rate consistent with the rate of MCS reported in several studies of the general population and in the same range as the prevalence of asthma.

By comparison, data on MCS among randomly selected active duty deployed and non-deployed are 1/3 to 1/4 lower due to the "healthy worker effect" (they are still working; while those too sick to work are now in the VA population). As published in the Sept 1998 JAMA study by CDC:

active duty non-deployed Air Force in PA: current MCS= 2%, last 6 months MCS= 1%
active duty deployed Air Force in PA: current MCS= 5%, last 6 months MCS= 4%

These data replicate those obtained earlier but NOT published in the CDC's 1997 JAMA study (according to the authors, the JAMA reviewers told them to take out all their MCS data and all reference to MCS since it is not a "recognized" disease):

active duty non-deployed DoD and reserve in IA: MCS= 2.6% (compare to current above)
active duty deployed DoD and reserve in IA: MCS= 5.4% (compare to current above)