Gulf War Link to Lou Gehrig’s Disease: Soldiers who served in the Gulf are almost twice as likely to develop the progressive neuromuscular degenerative disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, eponymously known for its most famous sufferer, as the general public, according to new findings. This disease is a major enigma of neurology whose cause remains a mystery, as the references in this Google search on [ALS + (etiology or pathogenesis)] will show, if you care to explore further. This New York Times article, which observes that the current findings represent the first official acknowledgement of a link between service in the Gulf and a specific disease, focuses largely on the Veterans Administration response in providing disability and survivor benefits commensurate with the finding. To now, the medical literature on ALS has remarked on the uniform incidence of the disease around the world, which has argued against an identifiable environmental agent. What is extraordinary, and receives no mention in the article, is that this study hints at the first robust epidemiological association between ALS and an environmental cause. Even if it is not clear what aspect of battlefield exposure may be to blame, this may prove to be a breakthrough in investigating the etiology of this mysterious and devastating illness. Indeed, if veterans suffered some neurotoxic exposure in the sands of Kuwait, it might affect more in the CNS than the upper motor neurons whose degeneration causes ALS, and might explain other aspects of “Gulf War Syndrome.”