The Institute of Medicine at the request of the Department of Veterans Affairs released a report last Friday detailing the incidence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), more commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, in past war veterans.

The report synthesized data from five previous studies, and, as feared, concluded that substantial evidence exists to indicate that veterans, particularly veterans of the Gulf War, are at an increased risk for ALS.

The vicious degenerative nerve disease is relatively rare in the general population, affecting only 20,000 to 30,000 Americans, according to the Associated Press.

Three of the studies of focus, however, concluded that the risk for ALS is nearly doubled for Gulf War veterans, while another indicated that the risk for veterans of other wars may be 1.5 times that for non-veterans.

We find the lack of military and government reaction to the report quite troublesome. The cause of ALS remains unclear beyond the supposed small genetic component, but this is precisely why the matter deserves officials' attention.

Money should immediately be allocated for the funding of intensified research. Leading experts in the field should be solicited to devote their research to this aspect of the disease.

It is painfully clear by now that our troops will be in the Middle East for sometime. In fact, the Gulf War was shorter in duration than the current Iraq conflict has already been.

If our leaders assert that we must support our troops in their long-term goals abroad, then they had better heed their own advice. More than 100,000 troops are employed today in the same region under largely similar conditions that the Gulf War troops were.

In all likelihood, these troops already stand an ALS risk equal to or worse than that of the Gulf War veterans.

For the Bush administration to do nothing and ignore the evidence now would be perhaps one of the worst instances of hypocrisy in the history of the Administration. And that's saying a lot.