The Gulf War Health Research Reform Act of 2014 () is a bill that 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), the federal agency under which the RAC is constituted. The bill would have made the RAC an independent organization within the VA, required 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. The RAC is responsible for investigating Gulf War Illness (formerly known as Gulf War syndrome), a chronic multi-symptom disorder affecting returning military veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf War. The bill was introduced into the United States House of Representatives during the 113th United States Congress. It passed the House unanimously but died in Congress when the Senate failed to take further action on it. Background Gulf War Illness (GWI), formerly known as Gulf War Syndrome, is a chronic multi-symptom disorder affecting returning military veterans of the 1990-91 Gulf War. A wide range of acute and chronic symptoms have been linked to it, including fatigue, muscle pain, cognitive problems, rashes and diarrhea. Approximately 250,000 of the 697,000 U.S. veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War are afflicted with enduring chronic multi-symptom illness, a condition with serious consequences. From 1995 to 2005, the health of combat veterans worsened in comparison with nondeployed veterans, with the onset of more new chronic diseases, functional impairment, repeated clinic visits and hospitalizations, chronic fatigue syndrome-like illness, posttraumatic stress disorder, and greater persistence of adverse health incidents. According to a report by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan may also suffer from the syndrome. Some of the early potential causes considered were depleted uranium, sarin gas, smoke from burning oil wells, vaccinations, combat stress and psychological factors. The RAC concluded in 2014 and had published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Cortex that, "exposure to pesticides and/or to PB [pyridostigmine bromide nerve agent protective pills] are causally associated with GWI and the neurological dysfunction in GW veterans. Exposure to sarin and cyclosarin and to oil well fire emissions are also associated with neurologically based health effects, though their contribution to development of the disorder known as GWI is less clear. Gene-environment interactions are likely to have contributed to