Join CIR on Tuesday, March 6, for its second Brown Bag of the year: “The Effectiveness of Acupuncture in the Treatment of Gulf War Illness: Research Design and Preliminary Data” with Dr. Lisa Conboy.

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Join us as Dr. Lisa Conboy of Harvard Medical School presents preliminary findings from her work focused on measuring the efficacy of acupuncture as treatment for Gulf War Illness (GWI). GWI is a complex, poorly understood illness characterized by many symptoms – including fatigue, sleep and mood problems, difficulty concentrating, difficulty thinking and finding words, and musculoskeletal pain. More than 100,000 of the 700,000 veterans deployed to the Persian Gulf in the first Gulf War have presented with medical complaints. Affected veterans have received treatment directed at their symptoms, but at 5- and 10-year follow-ups, many report their symptoms remain, some of them severe and disabling. The cause of GWI is unknown, and the symptoms cannot be explained by physical or laboratory examinations.

Dr. Lisa Conboy is a social epidemiologist and a sociologist with an interest in the associations between social factors and health.  She is published in the areas of Women’s Health, Mind-Body Medicine, and qualitative research methodology. An Instructor at the Osher Center for Clinical Therapies and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, she is also the research director and part-time faculty at the New England School of Acupuncture where she teaches research methodology.  She is also a founding member of the Kripalu research collaborative which examines the mental, physical, and spiritual benefits of yoga, meditation, Ayurveda and other holistic and mind-body therapies.