Medical After Action Report

File: doc04_10.txt
Page: 10
Total Pages: 23
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November 1990 through the U.S. Navy forward laboratory located at
Al Jubail.   This capability was augmented in January 1991 by the
U.S. Army 996th Medical Detachment in Riyadh and the U.S. Army
Forward Laboratory~at King Khalid Military city in Hafr Al Batin
for a total Theater Area Medical Laboratory (TAXt) contingent of
three.  A 11S~~T'1  (Simple Membrane Antigen Rapid Test) kit was
distributed on 18 January 1991 to medical personnel for rapid
identification of Anthrax.  By 31 January 1991 the kit had proven
worthless due to unacceptably high false positivity rate.    The
focus of the medical community for detection of a BW attack was on
the diagnosis of the sick soldier.

    A major emphasis of the U.S. Central Command Surgeon's office
was dissemination of information as to how the medical community
should alert command and intelligence channels of a suspected BW
attack. The collection of both clinical and environmental samples
in the detection of BW agents was a dynamic process.     As TAML
assets changed,   so did  sample processing.    The necessity to
establish and maintain a valid chain of custody for biomedical
samples was emphasized.  By the outbreak of hostilities, a program
existed to   take  biomedical samples  at   the medical treatment
facility and simultaneously distribute these samples to both TAMLs
and Technical Intelligence channels.   The Technical Escort process
was exercised as early as 8 December 1990 with biomedical samples
from Iraqi deserters that were provided b                    The
results of this testing showed no organized BW agent immunization
program among Iraqi military deserters.


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