51% increased risk of later development of cardiac, gastrointestinal, or nervous disease." early gulf war research also failed to accurately account for the prevalence, duration, and health impact of gulf war illness. for example, a november 1996 article in the new england journal of medicine found no difference in death rates, hospitalization rates, or self-reported symptoms between persian gulf veterans and non-persian gulf veterans. this article was a compilation of dozens of individual studies involving tens of thousands of veterans. the study did find a statistically significant elevation in the number of traffic accidents gulf war veterans had. an april 1998 article in emerging infectious diseases similarly found no increased rate of hospitalization and better health on average for veterans of the persian gulf war in comparison to those who stayed home. in contrast to those early studies, in january 2006, a study led by melvin blanchard published in the journal of epidemiology, part of the "national health survey of gulf war-era veterans and their families", found that veterans deployed in the persian gulf war had nearly twice the prevalence of chronic multisymptom illness, a cluster of symptoms similar to a set of conditions often at that time called gulf war syndrome. louis jones jr. claimed gulf war syndrome as a defense in his murder trial on november 17, 2008, the department of veterans affairs (va) research advisory committee on gulf war veterans' illnesses (rac), a congressionally mandated federal advisory committee composed of va-appointed clinicians, researchers, and representative gulf war veterans, issued a major report announcing scientific findings, in part, that "gulf war illness is real", that gwi is a distinct physical condition, and that it is not psychological in nature. the 454 page report reviewed 1,840 published studies to form its conclusions identifying the high prevalence of gulf war illness, suggesting likely causes rooted in toxic exposures while ruling out combat stress as a cause, and opining that treatments likely could be found. it recommended that congress increase funding for treatment-focused gulf war illness research to at least $60 million per year. in march 2013, a hearing was held before the subcommittee on oversight and investigations of the committee on veterans' affairs, u.s. house of representatives, to determine not whether gulf war illness exists, but rather how it is identified, diagnosed and treated, and how the tools put in place to aid these efforts have been used. by 2016, the national academy of sciences, engineering, and medicine (nasem) concluded there was sufficient evidence of a positive association between deployment to the 1990–1991 gulf war and gulf war illness. jones controversy louis jones jr., the perpetrator of the 1995 murder of tracie mcbride, stated that the gulf war syndrome caused him to commit the crime and he sought clemency, hoping to avoid the death penalty given to him by a federal court. jones was executed in 2003. related legislation on march 14, 2014, representative mike coffman introduced the gulf war health research reform act of 2014 (h.r. 4261; 113th congress) into the united states house of representatives, where it passed the house by unanimous consent but then died in congress when the senate failed to take action on it. the bill would have altered the relationship between the research advisory committee on gulf war veterans' illnesses (rac) and the united states department of veterans affairs (va) under which the rac is constituted. the bill would have made the rac an independent organization within the va, require that a majority of the rac's members be appointed by congress instead of the va, and authorized the rac to release its reports without needing prior approval from the va secretary. in the year prior to the consideration of this bill, the va and the rac were at odds with one another. the va replaced all but one of the members of the rac, removed some of their supervisory tasks, tried to influence the board to decide that stress, rather than biology was the cause of gulf war illness, and told the rac that it could not publish reports without permission. the rac was created after congress decided that the va's research into the issue was flawed, and focused on psychological causes, while mostly ignoring biological ones. the rac was first authorized under the veterans programs enhancement act of 1998 (section 104 of public law 105–368, enacted november 11, 1998, and now codified as 38 u.s.c. § 527 note). while the law directing its creation mandated that it be established not later than january 1, 1999, the rac's first charter was not issued until january 23, 2002, by va secretary anthony principi. the rac convened for its first meetings on april 11–12, 2002.