WRAIR researchers have followed the precedent set by its Vietnam teams, who collocated researchers in the field with warfighters; the institute’s Mental Health Advisory Teams (MHATs) have been instrumental in expanding troops’ access to mental health care and, ultimately, improving outcomes for returning veterans – who have been the first American warfighters to endure multiple yearlong deployments, over a conflict that has lasted more than a decade.
Dr. Maurice Hilleman (far left) shown with the staff of the Respiratory Disease Department of WRAIR. Walter Reed Army Institute of Research photo
“It’s the first time in our history we’ve dealt with this,” said Smith. “It’s really the first time anybody has dealt with it … it’s a readiness problem, and WRAIR has been tasked to do something about it in the same way they were told to do something about malaria, which was reducing the readiness of the force in Vietnam. The purpose of the Army is to fight – so in Vietnam, WRAIR worked and built new drugs to keep people healthy while they were in a malaria zone. Now, we’ll build something to keep them resilient enough to fight through the kinds of stressors associated with these multiple deployments.”
It’s gratifying when a WRAIR breakthrough proves valuable to the larger world: The vaccines developed or improved by its researchers have likely saved thousands, perhaps millions, of lives, and the solutions being developed today for warfighters – protecting them from disease; helping them become more resilient in the face of unprecedented service-related stress; and keeping them alert and ready to fight – will surely bring life-saving or life-enhancing discoveries to a multitude of civilians.
It’s gratifying when a WRAIR breakthrough proves valuable to the larger world: The vaccines developed or improved by its researchers have likely saved thousands, perhaps millions, of lives, and the solutions being developed today for warfighters – protecting them from disease; helping them become more resilient in the face of unprecedented service-related stress; and keeping them alert and ready to fight – will surely bring life-saving or life-enhancing discoveries to a multitude of civilians.
A boy in India is immunized against Japanese encephalitis. Photo courtesy of PATH/Julie Jacobson
But the Army Medical School was established 120 years ago to serve the Army, and its descendant, WRAIR, shares that purpose, a fact that ensures it will continue to evolve as America’s national security concerns change – as they always have, and always will.
“WRAIR’s history has been made by those research commanders, staff officers to the surgeon general, working with ‘Big Army’ and DoD to shape what’s doable – and what ought to be done – with the medical research funding available, to make the Army as healthy as we can.”
“The people of WRAIR, civilians and military,” said Smith, “are not like university scientists, allowed to work on whatever they want to this week; they do what they are funded to do. WRAIR’s history has been made by those research commanders, staff officers to the surgeon general, working with ‘Big Army’ and DoD to shape what’s doable – and what ought to be done – with the medical research funding available, to make the Army as healthy as we can.”
This article first appeared in Walter Reed Army Institute of Research: 120 Years of Advances for Military and Public Health.