Strategies to Protect the Health of Deployed U.S. Forces Analytical Framework for Assessing Risks (2000) / Chapter Skim
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2 Rationale and Objectives for Examining Risks to Deployed Forces
2 Rationale and Objectives for Examining Risks to Deployed Forces
Pages 19-27
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From page 19... ...
Each deployment can display a novel array of military and nonmilitary threats, known and unknown, with mission objectives dictating that these be dealt with as they come. Many activities carried out in this environment are not routine; tasks must be accomplished with the means at hand, despite potential dangers, in a setting where time, materiel, and attention are at a premium and 19
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From page 20... ...
Troops in hostile settings also have an understandable concern about their personal safety, and might show adverse effects from the stress of contemplating potential dangers and uncertainty about what the future might hold. CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AGENTS Although most major military powers, including the United States, have formally renounced development and maintenance of chemical and biological warfare capabilities, the relatively modest technological challenges and costs for producing such agents has led to increasing concern about proliferation to rogue states and terrorist groups.
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From page 21... ...
Moreover, individual units can become somewhat isolated from central support and supply services, including medical services. There is a tension, therefore, between the provision of means to detect, protect against, and treat the consequences of exposures to potentially harmful agents in the deployment environment and the burdens this places on the units that must carry them out.
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From page 22... ...
and allied forces to deliver destructive force with pinpoint accuracy while troops are deployed in relative safety far from the immediate zone of engagement. In recent engagements, air supremacy has been readily achieved, and the combination of such dominance, stealth technology, and precisely guided munitions has led to the perception that overwhelming military force can be brought to bear on an adversary with minimal risk of U.S.
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From page 23... ...
A deeper discussion of the issues surrounding risk communication and the public trust in risk assessment and management can be found in recent reports of national blue-ribbon panels: Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society (NRC 1996) and the two-volume 1997 report of the Presidential/Congressional Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management, Frameworkfor Environmental Health RiskManagement, and Risk Assessment and Risk Management in Regulatory DecisionMaking (PCCRARM 1997a,b)
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From page 24... ...
With the increasing interest in the environmental causes of disease, especially chronic disease, with the increasingly broad availability of scientific information, and with the burgeoning ability of interested parties to exchange information, trade concerns, and organize themselves using the internet, all decisions regarding health and safety are subject to considerable independent scrutiny. More important, there is considerable scope for retrospective criticism and post hoc construction of hypothetical links between emerging symptoms or syndromes and past exposures resulting from deployment of forces, especially in view of the latency inherent between exposures and subsequent manifestations of chronic health effects.
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From page 25... ...
Finally, personnel conducting ongoing and retrospective surveillance of troops' (and veterans') health status must be alert for effects that arise despite efforts at protection; these effects should be used to provide lessons for reducing risks in future deployments.
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From page 26... ...
There is increasing recognition of the role of physical and psychological stress in prompting physiological changes that might have health consequences on their own or through interaction with other agents. At the same time, the military is expected to take increasing responsibility for examining the potential health and safety risks to its troops, and the spectrum of concerns is broadening from acute illness and injury as a result of disease exposures, mishaps, and accidents to possible influences of low-level chemical and physical exposures on chronic diseases that might manifest themselves years later, perhaps long after cessation of military service.
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From page 27... ...
There is a need for a process that is open and encourages scrutiny of DOD actions and the incorporation of health and safety concerns into all aspects of decision-making. Emphasis should be placed on the prior recognition of potential threats, and characterizing and setting priorities for them; monitoring for detection and characterization of known threats and their impacts; and ongoing and retrospective surveillance of troops' (and veterans')
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