United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases

Coordinates: 39°26′17″N 77°25′24″W / 39.438°N 77.4234°W / 39.438; -77.4234
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US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases
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United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases
The USAMRIID logo
Active1969–present
Country United States of America
Branch United States Army
TypeMedical R&D Command
RoleMedical research and development
Part ofUnited States biological defense program
Garrison/HQFort Detrick, Maryland, U.S.
Motto(s)"Biodefense Solutions to Protect Our Nation"
Commanders
Current
commander
Colonel Aaron C. Pitney
The "Dan Crozier Building", at USAMRIID, Fort Detrick, Maryland.

The United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID; /jˈsæmrɪd/) is the U.S Army's main institution and facility for defensive research into countermeasures against biological warfare. It is located on Fort Detrick, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., and is a subordinate lab of the United States Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC), headquartered on the same installation.

USAMRIID is the only

Biosafety Level 4 within positive pressure personnel suits
.

USAMRIID employs both military and civilian

state-of-the-art biocontainment facilities which it continues to maintain and upgrade. Investigators at its facilities frequently collaborate with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization
, and major biomedical and academic centers worldwide.

USAMRIID was the first bio-facility of its type to research the

Mission

USAMRIID's 1983 mission statement mandated that the Institute:

Develops strategies, products, information, procedures and training for medical defense against biological warfare agents and naturally occurring infectious agents of military importance that require special containment.

USAMRIID's current mission statement is:

To protect the Warfighter from biological threats and to be prepared to investigate disease outbreaks or threats to public health.

National and international legal status

By

Executive Orders renouncing the use of biological and toxin weapons, and the U.N. Biological Weapons Convention
of 1972.

History

Beginnings

USAMRIID traces its institutional lineage to the early 1950s, when Lt. Col.

Army Medical Unit (AMU)—began operations in 1956 under the command of Col. William D. Tigertt. (One of the AMU's first responsibilities was to oversee all aspects of Project CD-22, the exposure of volunteers to aerosols containing a highly pathogenic strain of Coxiella burnetii, the causal agent of Q fever
.)

In 1961, Col. Dan Crozier assumed command of the AMU. Modern principles of biosafety and biocontainment were pioneered at Fort Detrick throughout the 1960s by a number of scientists led by Arnold G. Wedum. Crozier oversaw the planning and construction of the present USAMRIID laboratory and office building (Building 1425) and its advanced biocontainment suites, which is formally known as "The Crozier Building". Ground breaking came in 1967 (personnel moved in during 1971 and 1972). In 1969, the BWL were formally disestablished and the Institute underwent a formal name change from the AMU to the "U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases". The institute's mission did not really change and it received additional funding and personnel authorizations to hire biomedical and laboratory scientists who were losing their jobs as a result of the termination of the United States' offensive BW studies.

1970s

By the late 1970s, in addition to the work on Coxiella burnetii and other

Centers for Disease Control
(CDC) at this time stipulating that USAMRIID would house and treat highly contagious infections in laboratory personnel should any occur. (After deploying on only four "real world" missions in 32 years, the AIT was ultimately decommissioned in 2010.)

1980s

The 1980s saw the establishment of a new program to improve the existing anthrax vaccine, and to develop new information on the pathophysiology of weaponized anthrax disease. This came in response to the

Legionnaire's disease at the urging of some medical authorities. Almost a year later, a panel of experts decided that this organism did not have potential as a BW agent and the program was discontinued. Of greater longevity were the new research programs initiated at this time to study the trichothecene fungal toxins, marine toxins
and other small molecular weight toxins of microbial origin.

The early 1980s also saw the development at USAMRIID of new diagnostic methods for several pathogenic organisms such as

U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense
(USAMRICD).

In 1985, General Maxwell R. Thurman, then Army Deputy Chief of Staff, reviewed the threat posed to U.S. servicemembers by biological weapons. Thurman was particularly concerned about the application of genetic engineering technology to alter conventional microorganisms and his review resulted in a five-year plan of expansion for research into medical defensive measures at USAMRIID. The 1985 in-house budget of 34 M USD was to expand to 45 M the next year and was eventually scheduled to reach 93.2 M by 1989. (The need for a physical detection system to identify an aerosol of infectious agent became apparent at this time. The lack of such a reliable system still represents one of the major technical difficulties in the field.) Within two years, however, it became apparent that this program of expansion would not materialize. A new proposed toxin laboratory was never built. The Army had experienced several budget cuts and these impacted the funding of the institute.

By 1988, USAMRIID began to come under close scrutiny by several Congressional committees. The Senate

Government Accounting Office (GAO) to investigate the validity of DoD's Biological Defense Research Program. The GAO issued a critical report concluding that the Army spent funds on R&D efforts that did not address validated BW threats and may have duplicated the research efforts of the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health
.

While investigating an outbreak of

outbreak" became the focus of Richard Preston's bestselling 1995 book The Hot Zone
.

1990s

During the period of

Desert Storm (1990–91) USAMRIID provided the DoD with expert advice and products (vaccines and drugs) to ensure an effective medical response if a medical defense were required. USAMRIID scientists trained and equipped six special laboratory teams for rapid identification of potential BW agents, which fortunately never appeared. Following the conflict, USAMRIID physicians and engineers were key members of a United Nations Special Commission
(UNSCOM) Inspection Team that evaluated the BW capabilities in Iraq during the 1990s.

2000s

In late 2001, USAMRIID became the

CIA and the White House is detailed in Richard Preston's 2002 book The Demon in the Freezer.[3]

An inspection by USAMRMC, conducted seven months after the Amerithrax incidents, found that Suite B-3 in Building 1425 at the Institute not only was contaminated with anthrax in three locations but the bacteria had escaped from secure areas in the building to those that were unprotected. The report stated that, "safety procedures at the facility and in individual laboratories were lax and inadequately documented; that safety supervision sometimes was carried out by junior personnel with inadequate training or survey instruments; and that exposures of dangerous bacteria at the lab, including anthrax, had not been adequately reported."[4]

In August 2008, a USAMRIID scientist, Dr.

John D. Dingell and Bart Stupak have stated that they will lead investigations into security at the Institute as part of a review of all the nation's biodefense labs.[7]

2010s

Safety policies changed at USAMRIID following an incident in March 2010. A young microbiologist became trapped in the -30 freezer portion of 'Little Alaska.' Due to the corroded nature of the freezer door, the woman was trapped in the life-threatening conditions for over 40 minutes. She was eventually recovered and the incident was labelled as a near miss. USAMRIID instituted a mandatory '2 man freezer policy' and worked to keep both the quality of the door and the security in that surrounding area up to a higher standard.[8]

Groundbreaking occurred in August 2009 for a new, state-of-the-art, 835,000 square feet (78,000 m2) facility at Ft Detrick for USAMRIID. The building, being constructed by Manhattan Torcon Joint Venture under the supervision of the US Army Corps of Engineers, is projected for completion and partial occupation by 2015 or '16 and full occupation by 2017. This delay to the project delivery is in part due to a fire within the BSL4 laboratory area[9]

In August 2019, all research at USAMRIID was indefinitely put on hold after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited the organization for failing to meet biosafety standards.[10][11][12] In November 2019, limited research was resumed after infrastructure, training, compliance and biosafety standards had been improved.[13]

List of USAMRIID commanders

COL Dan Crozier, MD 1969 1973
Brig. Gen. Kenneth R. Dirks 1973
COL Joseph F. Metzger 1973 1977
COL Richard F. Barquist, MD 1977 1983
COL David L. Huxsoll, DVM, PhD 1983 1990
COL Charles L. Bailey, PhD 1990
COL Ronald G. Williams 1990 1992
COL Ernest T. Takafuji, MD, MPH 1992 1995
COL David R. Franz, DVM 1995 1998
COL Gerald W. Parker, DVM, PhD, MS 1998 2000
COL Edward M. Eitzen Jr, MD, MPH 2000 2002
COL Erik A. Henchal, PhD 2002 2005
COL George W. Korch, PhD 2005 2008
COL John P. Skvorak, DVM, PhD 2008 2011
COL Bernard L. DeKoning, MD, FAAFP 2011 2013
COL Erin P. Edgar, MD 2013 2015
COL Thomas S. Bundt, MA, MHA, MBA, PhD 2015 2017
COL Gary A. Wheeler 2017 2019
COL E. Darrin Cox 2019 2021
COL Constance L. Jenkins 2021 2023
COL Aaron C. Pitney 2023 present

Notable USAMRIID scientists

Periodic USAMRIID training courses

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ "USAMRIID". www.usamriid.army.mil. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  2. ^ "America Steps-Up Biodefenses - OhmyNews International". english.ohmynews.com. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  3. ^ Preston, Richard (2002), The Demon in the Freezer, New York: Random House.
  4. Washington Times
    , August 8, 2008, p. 1.
  5. ^ Hernandez, Nelson, and Philip Rucker, "Anthrax Case Raises Doubt On Security", August 8, 2008, p. 1.
  6. ^ Associated Press, "Army Team To Probe Security At Detrick", August 9, 2008.
  7. ^ Meyer, Josh, "Anthrax Case Prompts Congressional Investigation Of Biodefense Labs", Los Angeles Times, August 9, 2008.
  8. The Frederick News-Post
    , July 15, 2010.
  9. ^ Staff, Sylvia Carignan News-Post (17 March 2014). "Fort Detrick's $10 million fire". Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  10. ^ "Fort Detrick lab shut down after failed safety inspection; all research halted indefinitely". 2 August 2019. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  11. ^ "Maryland Senator Pens Letter to Army over Fort Detrick Lab Shutdown". Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  12. ^ "Army lab fights coronavirus and its own demons". 26 March 2020. Retrieved 26 April 2020.
  13. ^ "CDC Approves Partial Resumption of USAMRIID Select Agent Research". 23 November 2019. Retrieved 20 March 2020.

External links

39°26′17″N 77°25′24″W / 39.438°N 77.4234°W / 39.438; -77.4234