Gulf War Illnesses: DOD's Conclusions about U.S. Troops' Exposure Cannot Be Adequately Supported

In commenting on a draft of this report, DOD did not concur with the recommendation. We subsequently clarified the wording of the recommendation to address its concerns. In commenting on the final report, DOD stated that it stands behind the modeling that it did and continues to nonconcur with the recommendation. DOD stated that scientific experts in modeling reviewed both the methodology and results of the modeling and concluded that the DOD work was sound. DOD stated that GAO has ignored scientific fundamentals in its analysis and only evaluated historical models. Thus, any assessments of modeling made by GAO should only be considered as applicable to historical models. It further stated that GAO?s insistence on the value of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory modeling was a serious error. It claimed that based on an independent analysis, the Institute for Defense Analyses judged this model to be less capable than other DOD models. In addition, DOD claimed that GAO underestimated the abilities of epidemiologists using the DOD data. The population identified as potentially at risk has been used by various researchers, and, according to DOD, they clearly understand the assumptions made in modeling and the considerations necessary to evaluate the health of this population in comparison to controls. DOD stated that those published studies are appropriately valid.