Neither veterans nor their doctors know who is receiving the active medicine. The active therapy is doxycycline, an antibiotic in use for more than 30 years. Previous smaller studies indicated it might be effective in treating Gulf War-ill veterans. Md. The center provides nationwide coordination for the study. The participating 26 VA centers and two U.S. Department of Defense centers are in every region of the country.
Patient enrollment is ethnically representative.
The South Texas Veterans Health Care System s Audie Murphy Division, located in San Antonio, is part of a different VA Gulf War study focusing on exercise and behavioral therapy. The Houston VA is the Texas enrolling center for the antibiotic study. They attack cells and then hang around, sometimes inside of cells. They are hard to kill. Mycoplasmas exhibit a real parasitism with the host cells, resulting in the establishment of chronic infections.