detailed information be gathered during future military deployments. Specifically, working toward the development of a job-task-unit-exposure matrix in which information on people with specific jobs or tasks or attached to specific units (according to routinely available records) is linked to exposures by expert assessment or simulation studies would enable quantitative assessment of the effects of specific exposures.

The committee noted that several health outcomes seemed to be appearing with higher incidence or prevalence in the Gulf War-deployed veterans. For those outcomes, the committee recommends continued surveillance to determine whether there is actually a higher risk in Gulf War veterans. Those outcomes are cancer (particularly brain and testicular), ALS, birth defects (including Goldenhar syndrome and urinary tract abnormalities) and other adverse pregnancy outcomes (such as, spontaneous abortion and ectopic pregnancy), and postdeployment psychiatric conditions. The committee also recommends that cause-specific mortality in Gulf War veterans continue to be monitored. Although there was an increase in mortality in the first few years after the Gulf War, the deaths appear to have been related to transportation injuries.