The Army is expert in Biosafety and Level 4, and spread it’s knowledge to other agencies, such as the CDC.
“”At the request of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a small team of scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Ft. Detrick, Md., has trained its microscopes on severe acute respiratory syndrome.”
The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID; pronounced: you-SAM-rid) is the U.S Army’s main institution and facility for defensive research into countermeasures against biological warfare. It is located on Fort Detrick, Maryland and is a subordinate lab of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), headquartered on the same installation.
USAMRIID is the only U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) laboratory equipped to study highly hazardous viruses at Biosafety Level 4 within positive pressure personnel suits.
USAMRIID employs both military and civilian scientists as well as highly specialized support personnel, in all about 800 people. In the 1950s and ‘60s, USAMRIID and its predecessor unit pioneered unique, state-of-the-art biocontainment facilities which it continues to maintain and upgrade. Investigators at its facilities frequently collaborate with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and major biomedical and academic centers worldwide.
USAMRIID was the first bio-facility of its type to research the Ames strain of anthrax, determined through genetic analysis to be the bacterium used in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
“This [research] does in fact fit into our overall mission in that although we have not had an outbreak in the military yet, if we were operating in an area where the SARS virus was in fact transmitting, this would be a significant military problem,” said John Huggins. An expert in viral research and chief of the laboratory’s viral therapeutics branch, Huggins’ major concentration has been on screening drugs against viral agents, including Ebola, Marburg, smallpox and now SARS.
Scientists at the Army institute normally work to develop strategies for protecting military personnel against biological warfare threats and naturally occurring infectious diseases.
“The first prototype Class III (maximum containment) biosafety cabinet was fashioned in 1943 by Hubert Kaempf Jr., then a U.S. Army soldier, under the direction of Dr. Arnold G. Wedum, Director (1944–69) of Industrial Health and Safety at the United States Army Biological Warfare Laboratories, Camp Detrick, Maryland. Kaempf was tired of his MP duties at Detrick and was able to transfer to the sheet metal department working with the contractor, the H.K. Ferguson Co.
On 18 April 1955, fourteen representatives met at Camp Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. The meeting was to share knowledge and experiences regarding biosafety, chemical, radiological, and industrial safety issues that were common to the operations at the three principal biological warfare (BW) laboratories of the U.S. Army Because of the potential implication of the work conducted at biological warfare laboratories, the conferences were restricted to top level security clearances. Beginning in 1957, these conferences were planned to include non-classified sessions as well as classified sessions to enable broader sharing of biological safety information. It was not until 1964, however, that conferences were held in a government installation not associated with a biological warfare program.
Over the next ten years, the biological safety conferences grew to include representatives from all federal agencies that sponsored or conducted research with pathogenic microorganisms.”
Yes, but if they were headed overseas, they would be hiring general contractors with specialized knowledge in constructing hospitals to accompany them. Instead, we appear to be appealing to the lowest common denominator by sending in infantry, logistics/supply and perhaps some combat engineers.