ACBULET TECNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS THE UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 3010 DEFENSE PENTAGON WASHINGTON, DC 20301-3010 10 JAN 2003 The ilonorable Christopher Shays 11.S.Jouse of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Dear Representative Shays: Thank you for your recent letter to Secretary Rumsfold requesting an updaw on OFT USBCBSMONI Of supplying chemical and biological protective suits to deploying forces. The Department of Defense (DoD) fully intends in provide our deploying forces with the best available cheruical and biological defense equipment. The Joint Staff has directed that every military Service member deploying for any potential conflict in Southwest Axiu have a minimaan of twu Joint Service Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology (JSI JST) or Saratoga suits. Based on a rocent logistics assement, the DoD currently has an adequate supply of JSLIST suits to support this requirement. The Services will continue to use the Battle Dress Overgarment (ADO) as a backup to the JSLIST until sufficient additional inventory of JSLIST ruim are available to provide a fimal basis of issue of four suits per person. Priority of issun fur future JSLIST suit distribution is to doplaying forces The production of JSLIST sulta was increased from 79,000 suits per month in 90,000 mits per month beginning in December 2002. In addition, the DoD is raking stops to surge the production higher over the upcoming months and intends to Hcelerate the planned replacement of DDOS. The safety of our military members is a top priority of DuD. Your concern for Llanir welfare is deeply appreciated. Thank you for your continued support of U.S. national defense. Sincerely, B. C. Aldridge, Jr. TOTAL P.02 Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Tierney, you have the floor for a generous 5 minutes. Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the long series of these hearings that you've had over the years. I think they have served to benefit the men and women that are there now. I don't think that without having had the hearing on the condition of our protective suits, that they would have the two new suits; and so I appreciate that, and I am sure their families do. Mr. SHAYS. It has been a team effort on both sides of the aisle. Mr. TIERNEY. Doctor, Dr. Winkenwerder, let me ask you for a second: One of the concerns that we had in doing the homeland security measures was that if there was contamination, the people responding to that, the medical personnel who oftentimes found themselves unprepared, sometimes exacerbated the situation and completely knocked out an entire medical unit because they hadn't been prepared to separate the contaminated folks out from the oth ers. My understanding is that, in the Gulf, most of the medical people, the doctors and nurses sent over there, are Reservists, which would raise the specter that their training is 1 weekend a month or 2 weekends a month and 2 weeks in the summer; and I would guess that would probably be barely enough to keep up on their training for medical treatment in the field. Can you give us some assurance that those Reservists have, in fact, been properly trained to meet what might happen in terms of a chemical or biological attack? Dr. WINKENWERDER. We expect every service to be trained equally to the Active Duty to take care of those situations. Mr. TIERNEY. How is that happening if they are getting 1 weekend a month and 2 weeks in the summer, and in that period of time have to keep up with their own medical treatment? How are they getting this additional training? Where are they getting that in a fashion that would give us the comfort that they are really prepared and ready? Dr. WINKENWERDER. Well, there are a variety of training courses that we offer. And it is part of this overall requirement that I set into place last year that for every medical person in the military health system, professional, that depending upon his or her level, there should be training to deal with chemical and biological events. And so we expect that. That is a responsibility of each of the services, to provide that training and to ensure that we meet the standards. Mr. TIERNEY. Have you been monitoring that? Dr. WINKENWERDER. Yes, we have been. Mr. TIERNEY. And how much additional training other than that 1 weekend a month and 2 weeks a summer are these personnel getting? Dr. WINKENWERDER. Well, I had some figures that we recently generated from the three services, and I want to be careful with this, to describe it as accurately as my recollection will allow. But the percentages are in the high double digits now as opposed to the low single digits, what they were a couple of years ago. So there has been Mr. TIERNEY. Double digits? Single digits? What? Dr. WINKENWERDER. That means like somewhere between 60 and 80-something percent. And again, there has been an effort to make sure that those that are deploying are the ones that get the training. So when I describe those statistics, that is across the whole system. Obviously, not everybody is going, so the training has been targeted more toward people that are serving. But I will-I understand the gist of your question and we will try to get back with that information. Mr. TIERNEY. Would you get that information? Dr. WINKENWERDER. Yes, sir. We would be glad to. [The information referred to follows:] Hearing Date: March 25, 2003 Committee: House Government Reform Witness: Dr. Winkenwerder IFR: Pages 64-66, lines 1411-1442 Question: My understanding is that, in the Gulf, most of the medical people, the doctors and nurses sent over there, are Reservists, which would raise the specter that their training is one weekend a month or two weekends a month and two weeks in the summer; and I would guess that would probably be barely enough to keep up on their training for medical treatment in the field. Can you give us some assurance that those Reservists have, in fact, been properly trained to meet what might happen in terms of a chemical or biological attack? How is that happening if they are getting one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer, and in that period of time have to keep up with their own medical treatment? How are they getting this additional training? Where are they getting that in a fashion that would give us the comfort that they are really prepared and ready? Answer: All medical personnel (active and reserve) are fully trained in their medical specialties before being designated for medical occupational specialties in the military. In addition, they receive extensive military-specific training, both medical and non-medical. Reserve Component medical personnel receive the same quality and level of training as their active duty counterparts. The Services have made great strides in the training of medical department personnel in chemical and biological casualty care. We have increased the training opportunities for the seven-day Medical Management of Chemical and Biological Casualties (MCBC) course. In addition to this course, we continue to employ distance learning technologies to train our medical forces and have a large number of web-based, computer-based, video, and satellite courses available. For each of the past three years, we have also produced and widely distributed to medical treatment facility personnel a CD with all chemical biological training materials to broaden our overall medical preparedness to respond to a chemical or biological incident. Today, 42% of Army officer clinicians and 18% of Army enlisted clinicians have completed more than 12-hours of specific chemical and biological casualty care training in addition to the chemical and biological training already incorporated in their mandatory professional development training. Also 72% of Navy clinicians assigned to hospitals received specific chemical and biological casualty care training primarily through the 12-hour Medical Management of Chemical and Biological Casualties satellite course or a 10-hour self-paced learning CD-ROM. And 85% of Air Force clinicians received specific chemical and biological casualty care training primarily through the 12-hour Medical Management of Chemical and Biological Casualties satellite course. Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. And again, because I continue to have concerns about those suits, and even though you've now told me how many suits they have, in my reading anyway, it indicates that that may well not be enough depending on how long this conflict goes. But you put out the impression at least, that Mr. Kucinich mentioned earlier, about the people being ready; and I am wondering, can you give us the assurance that Secretary Rumsfeld, through Under Secretary Aldridge, was not able to give us? Can you give us the assurance here today that the troops have sufficient equipment to protect them against chemical and biological attacks in quantities sufficient to meet the minimum required levels previously established by the Department of Defense? Dr. WINKENWERDER. Certainly, from a medical standpoint; and by that I mean the medical countermeasures, the antibiotics, the vaccinations and all of that; those are the issues that come directly under my area of responsibility. The others, my understanding from recent conversations with-Dr. Anna Johnson Winegar, who is the chief responsible person within the Office of the Secretary of Defense for those matters and has testified before this committee and others, has indicated that she believes that we are well prepared on the issues that you have just raised. Mr. TIERNEY. Well, your impression at least was not contained just to the medical end; it also involved the protective suits. Or did it not? Dr. WINKENWERDER. That is not-and I know from your perspective, as well it should be, you should be concerned about everything, and so I don't want to be bureaucratic here. But Mr. TIERNEY. I appreciate that. Dr. WINKENWERDER. It is not directly within my area of responsibility. It is another area that does work under Mr. Aldridge. We work closely, very closely with those people. The responsibility for executing those policies resides within each of those services. Mr. TIERNEY. Thank you. And just to finish up my generous 5 minutes, the reason I raised the initial question was that we had an exchange here in committee with Dr. Kingsbury, Nancy Kingsbury, at some point in time; and her answer indicated, to me at least, that in instances of mass casualties she did not believe that the exercises that have been done so far indicated that we could deal with those appropriately. So whatever assurances you could give the committee in terms of medical personnel being ready would be greatly appreciated. Dr. WINKENWERDER. We will do that. [The information referred to follows:] |