The Army has been heavily involved in running it’s own research and labs and operations similar to the CDC, and has ALWAYS been involved in the Ebola outbreaks.
“The U.S. military, and in particular, the Army, has had a longstanding mission in preventing and treating infectious and parasitic diseases in troops, dating to the late 1800s.”
“Filoviruses like Ebola have been of interest to the Pentagon since the late 1970s, mainly because Ebola and its fellow viruses have high mortality rates — in the current outbreak, roughly 60 percent to 72 percent of those who have contracted the disease have died — and its stable nature in aerosol make it attractive as a potential biological weapon.
Since the late 1970s and early 1980s, researchers at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases have sought to develop a vaccine or treatment for the disease.
Last year, USAMRIID scientists used a treatment, MB-003, on primates infected with Ebola after they became symptomatic; the treatment fully protected the animals when given one hour after exposure.”
Yup! Just found it. Of course. USAMRIID
I wish they’d have said that. All the press is saying is ‘soldiers’. And ‘boots on the ground’. This is stupid and leaves the impression that they’re sending in Joes.
USAMRIID has been involved with Ebola, Cholera, and many other outbreaks.
Now the only thing that I did find about USAMRIID in reference to this outbreak is that they were going to be ‘providing laboratory support’ for the outbreak, but that article was from last July.
Okay, here’s the frustrating thing. They *are* sending in 3,000 regular troops. This is not just a USAMRIID operation.
Or maybe Obama doesn’t know what the hell he’s taking about...?
USAMRIID has been a part of this operation from the beginning. These are additional soldiers. Guards and engineers. I do believe that, other than for support and protection for the regular USAMRIID people, this is unprecedented. I can not find any time in history that we’ve committed these kind of resources to an epidemic. (We didn’t do this during the cholera outbreak in Haiti. We’ve never sent troops in like this before.)
Do we have to deal with this? Yes. But it should be quarantine, not sending in ground troops and engineers.
So the US is sending 3,000 USAMRIID personnel all of whom couldn’t possibly get infected?