A study by the Institute of Medicine has found that brain cancer death rates of Gulf War veterans possibly exposed to the nerve agent sarin have been more than double the rates of unexposed soldiers. Some 100,000 soldiers possibly were exposed to sarin after U.S. forces blew up two enemy ammunition caches in Khamisiyah, Iraq, in March 1991. The number derives from the possibility that winds blew traces of the sarin as far as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Researchers found the brain cancer death rate between 1991 and 2000 of 12 per 100,000 for soldiers who were not exposed, whereas the death rate for exposed soldiers was 25 per 100,000. Nevertheless, the study states that sarin has not been shown to cause cancer, and a senior program officer at the institute avers that the study doesn’t prove that being in the hazard area caused brain cancer.