Video: Researcher uncovers what caused Gulf War Syndrome

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After the first Gulf War, many servicemen and women came home complaining of pains, headaches and chronic fatigue - what came to be known as Gulf War Syndrome. No one knew what caused it until now.

A new report links the syndrome to pesticides, nerve agents and a pill that was supposed to prevent the very symptoms it caused.

Scott Langhoff didn't see action, but he was deployed to the Middle East in the 90s. He began to suffer after coming home.

"I began to experience inflammation in all the ligaments and tendons in my joints," he said.

He also experienced chronic headaches and chronic fatigue – all common symptoms of Gulf War illness.

Now California researcher Dr. Beatrice Golomb has identified the chemicals which most likely caused it.

The chemicals came from the p-b pill, given to 250,000 troops to protect them against nerve agents, the nerve agents themselves that troops were exposed to when they demolished weapons depots in Iraq, and pesticides purchased in Saudi Arabia without the usual safety checks.

"People who were exposed to any one of those show elevated rates of health problems," Golomb said. "They were heavily used around mess areas, latrines, sometimes the living and bedding areas of the service people."

In all over 400,000 troops were exposed to the chemicals. Up to a third of them have had lingering health problems,

Scott Langhoff hopes for a cure, for but he also hopes more veterans will come forward to get help. A number of those veterans are also experiencing brain atrophy, muscular atrophy and Lou Gherig's Disease.

Other researchers, however, disagree with the findings. They say Gulf War Syndrome is too complex to be blamed on a single class of chemicals.