When has the Army ever headed such an effort before? When was the Army given the lead mission of disease control?
CDC Mission Statement
CDC works 24/7 to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S. Whether diseases start at home or abroad, are chronic or acute, curable or preventable, human error or deliberate attack, CDC fights disease and supports communities and citizens to do the same.
CDC increases the health security of our nation. As the nation’s health protection agency, CDC saves lives and protects people from health threats. To accomplish our mission, CDC conducts critical science and provides health information that protects our nation against expensive and dangerous health threats, and responds when these arise. CDC's Role
CDC 24-7 logoDetecting and responding to new and emerging health threats
Tackling the biggest health problems causing death and disability for Americans
Putting science and advanced technology into action to prevent disease
Promoting healthy and safe behaviors, communities and environment
Developing leaders and training the public health workforce, including disease detectives
Taking the health pulse of our nation
CDC in the 21st Century
On the cutting edge of health security – confronting global disease threats through advanced computing and lab analysis of huge amounts of data to quickly find solutions.
Putting science into action – tracking disease and finding out what is making people sick and the most effective ways to prevent it.
Helping medical care – bringing new knowledge to individual health care and community health to save more lives and reduce waste.
Fighting diseases before they reach our borders – detecting and confronting new germs and diseases around the globe to increase our national security.
Nurturing public health - building on our significant contribution to have strong, well-resourced public health leaders and capabilities at national, state and local levels to protect Americans from health threats.
I also didn’t see your source telling us that these 3,000 troops are not mostly regular GIs.
How do you define "line troops" or regular GIs?
Perhaps if you would do less posting of meaningless irrelevant cut and pastes, you could focus better.
Meaningless and irrelevant because they run counter to your narrative about the role and the ability of the US military to counter this disease. There is no pool of trained military personnel to treat ebola.
The bold that you think is so important in your post, also describes the United States Army.
In fact the Army appears to be at a level higher than CDC in it's work on some things, as you just skipped post 110.
You are ignoring the facts, that the Army has been doing this since the 1800s, that it has been involved in EVERY EBOLA OUTBREAK SINCE THE FIRST ONE IN 1976, THAT IT IS CURRENTLY IN AFRICA, DOING WHAT IT ALWAYS DOES.
And you seem to base this on having served in the Navy, well I served in the Army and I never saw this stuff either, I had to read about it, something that should do, you can start with reading my posts.
""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 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.""
""Scientists hopeful Army screening of 2,000 drugs will find treatment of SARS virus. They are being tested at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md.""
""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.
"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.
"Because SARS poses a global health problem for the military and civilians potentially, we were asked to participate in this effort also," he said. As of May 29, according to CDC, the virus had caused 750 deaths worldwide, although no SARS related deaths have been reported in the United States.
For years, the institute has been part of a government consortium of research facilities that includes the CDC, the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The Fort Detrick institute and CDC have existing collaborations on smallpox virus, Huggins said.""
Respectfully, you are misinformed about the capabilities of the U.S. Army with respect to infectious diseases. Read about the U.S. Army’s role in containing Ebola-Reston.
To your point though, the Army won’t be treating Ebola. They will be providing logistical support for and protection of our personnel.
I am ex-Army.
I work for the U.S.Military.
The Army has medical occupation specialties.
Doctors, nurses, medical technicians, dentists, etc.
And may contract medical specialists and researchers.
Soldiers are not trained to be doctors, beyond basic first aid/battlefield emergency treatment of serious wounds to stabilize the injured/ill until they can be transported to a hospital/trauma center for proper treatment.
Soldiers do not have the level of specialized medical training for them to be individually effective in this kind of situation (highly contagious serious disease).
The soldiers role can only be as gofers and guards.
Consequently the risk of soldiers catching ebola is higher than the politicians will admit to.
Please understand, no career politician will be the one who cries “Fire” in the theater...even when there is a fire. They do not want a panic. So they seek to assure all that all is well, there will be no problems, no chance for infection, etc etc. They will lie to avoid panic.
Unless, of course, they seek panic to accomplish some goal of theirs (”never let a crisis go to waste.”)
So in summary, sending 3,000 or whatever soldiers to a place where even the trained medical personnel are catching the disease, is VERY dangerous.
VERY.