Special Operations Forces Medical Handbook Updated
The United States Special Operations Command has published a newly updated handbook for use by special operations forces medics in the field.
“It emphasizes acute care in all its forms (including gynecology, general medicine, dentistry, poisonings, infestations, parasitic infections, acute infections, hyper and hypothermia, high altitude, aerospace, dive medicine, and sanitation.)”
The document, which is not yet available in soft copy, replaces a 2001 edition (large pdf) and may be purchased from the Government Printing Office Bookstore.
An earlier Army special forces medical handbook (large pdf) dated 1982 and obtained by Secrecy News is now “a relic of sentimental and historical interest only,” wrote Dr. Warner Anderson, a U.S. Army Colonel (ret.) and former associate dean of the Special Warfare Medical Group. It advocates “treatments that, if used by today’s medics, would result in disciplinary measures,” he told us last year. These include such unlikely remedies as drinking kerosene, eating cigarettes, and using live maggots to consume rotting tissue.
Slightly related is this report from the Congressional Research Service on “Military Medical Care: Questions and Answers” (pdf), updated October 31, 2008.
The Federation of American Scientists supports the Senate version of the Fix Our Forests Act.
The Federation of American Scientists supports the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology’s Final Report and the Recommendations contained within it.
The U.S. should create a new non-governmental Innovation Accelerator modeled after the successful In-Q-Tel program to invest in small and mid-cap companies creating technologies that address critical needs of the United States.
The federal government needs to strengthen energy systems through investments in energy infrastructure across energy generation, transmission, and use.