Page 146 - Journal of Special Operations Medicine - Summer 2015

An Ongoing Series

Preventive Medicine and Its Role
in the Special Operation Forces Medical Team

Juan J. Agudelo, PhD

ABSTRACT

Throughout history, Soldiers in wartime have been espe- take center stage until specific products and procedures
cially vulnerable to infectious diseases, which have dev- are in place.
astated and decimated entire armies, causing suspension
and, in some cases, complete cancellation of military According to the Army Field Hygiene and Sanitation re-
operations. Dr William Foege, a renowned Harvard port FM 21-10 MCRP 4-11.1D, “. . . in every conflict the
1
epidemiologist, and his colleagues claim that through- US has been involved in, only 20 percent of all hospital
out history, infectious diseases have killed more Soldiers admissions have been from combat injuries. The other
than have weapons. Reality shows that it does not mat- 80 percent have been from DNBI [diseases and nonbattle
ter if your Soldiers had the best training available with injury]. Excluded from these figures are vast numbers of
the best equipment and top of the world intelligence: if service members with decreased combat effectiveness due
your personnel get sick, they become more of a liabil- to DNBI not serious enough for hospital admission.” 2
ity than an asset for a combat operation. This article
presents some of the key findings that continue to affect Importance of Hygiene and Disease Prevention
our Special Operations Forces (SOF) and how the use
of specifically designed new products can help in con- On average, 36% of all deployed personnel get sick or
trolling short- and long-term consequences of infectious ill due to infection with common contagious diseases
diseases. that can be easily controlled with proper hygiene and
preventive medicine if the right products and proce-
Keywords: preventive medicine; diseases, infectious dures are in place. 1,3–5 Here are some simple facts that
can change the outcome of a well thought-out mission:

• Contagious diseases can go from a simple cold all the
Introduction
way to Ebola virus. With such a wide spectrum, all
An SOF deployment and mission is a complex sensitive SOF Units and their medical teams must pay special
and hard thing to achieve. The fewer health variables attention to this subject.
a commanding officer and his or her medic personnel • One of the first, most important, and clear signs of
have to deal with, the better the results will be. One of depression, mental health issues, and suicidal behav-
the main assumptions taken for granted is that all per- ior is when the Soldier “doesn’t clean him/herself.” 5
sonnel will be in top physical and mental health when • A filthy, harsh environment brings with it all kinds of
the moment comes, but it just takes a simple cold or viruses, bacteria, and germs that can take a Soldier
stomach flu to move a straightforward operation to a from healthy and strong to a sick individual in 24
highly risky one in a few hours. hours.
• A foot fungus can eat up skin so fast that in 4 days, a
For the past 3 years, a group of scientists, entrepreneurs, Soldier can barely walk or even stand upright.
and engineers came into the realization that preventive • Sunburn is the most common ultraviolet light-related
medicine has taken a back seat in the preparation of skin injury and has a serious effect on mobility and
our SOF, even though scientific data show that it should endurance of personnel. 7

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