Defense Researchers Urge Improvements in Protecting U.S. Military Forces Against Disease
By Joe Fiorill
Global Security Newswire
WASHINGTON — U.S. forces in the field could benefit from a host of changes in how they are protected against infectious disease, researchers say in a paper released yesterday by the National Defense University Center for Technology and National Security Policy (see GSN, Nov. 18).
In their study, policy center researchers Donald Thompson and Cheryl Loeb and Johns Hopkins University professor Joel Swerdlow call for improvements in technology development, medical support policies and procedures, civilian-military cooperation and disease monitoring and surveillance.
“Changing military doctrine and tactics call for a fresh approach to force protection,” the researchers write.
“Rapid deployment of military forces, revised distribution of medical resources in theater, improved body armor and modern combat casualty-care efforts are leading to different illnesses and injuries from those seen in previous conflicts,” they write. “Emerging infectious diseases in the context of urban warfare, low-intensity conflict and the rapid movement of service members and civilians have made a new approach to military medical support imperative.”
Among the study’s recommendations are faster field tests for certain diseases, better environmental sampling, heightened infection control and improved understanding of local diseases in places where forces are deployed.
The study also indicates a need for “cooperative disease-response and -control strategies in conjunction with federal, state and local public-health officials,” the linking of civilian and military medical research and intelligence with combatant commands, better tracking of service members in transit, and monitoring of health-care personnel “as a sentinel population of disease outbreaks.”
Although the study’s main focus is on naturally occurring diseases and not biological attacks, Swerdlow said today that it can often be initially unclear whether disease outbreaks among troops stem from nature or from malicious intent.
“When you encounter an infection in the real world, especially in the first instance, it may become increasingly difficult to know whether it’s naturally occurring or humanly encouraged,” he said in an interview.
The study reviews the history of diseases’ effects on deployed troops and warns of “disturbing trends in the development of infectious diseases in military forces deployed overseas, suggesting that line commanders and their medical advisers may be forgetting some of the most basic elements of disease prevention.”
The researchers say a renewed focus on natural disease is needed, but Swerdlow said today that such a shift does not have to imply giving less attention to biowarfare threats.
“It’s not a zero-sum game,” he said. “Paying more attention to one doesn’t mean less attention to another.”
