NATIONAL CENTER FOR MEDICAL INTELLIGENCE
Threats with a Central Point of Information and Intelligence.
by Colonel Anthony M. Rizzo, Director
National Center for Medical Intelligence
In response to the growing risk of medical threats, on July 2 the Department of Defense established the National Center for Medical Intelligence. While medical intelligence isn’t a new mission for DoD, the new center’s formal establishment underscores its importance in an age of newly emerging and constantly changing health threats.
For more than 60 years, medical intelligence has played an important part in both peace and wartime missions for the U.S. Armed Forces. In World War II, the Army Medical Intelligence Office was established under the Surgeon General of the Army to produce medical intelligence that helped U.S. forces avoid disease and non-battle injuries.
Defined as the assessment of potential health risks and capabilities that allow planning for proper medical countermeasures and field health care support for deployed forces, medical intelligence became a mission of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1963.
After undergoing many changes, the Armed Forces Medical Intelligence Center was established in 1982. For more than 25 years, AFMIC has prepared intelligence assessments and forecasts on foreign military and civilian medical systems, infectious disease and environmental health risks, and medical science and technology to inform combatant commanders, national policy officials and other federal agencies of potential health risks and foreign health care capabilities before deploying U.S. forces overseas.
For many government agencies in the intelligence community, 2001 was a catalyst for change. DoD faced a new reality that forces may deploy inside the United States in times of national emergency and the prospect that infectious diseases such as anthrax can be weaponized and used against Americans, overseas or at home.
In 2006, AFMIC began expanding its mission in support of homeland defense, contributing medical intelligence to assessments on bioterrorism, biowarfare, counterterrorism, and counterproliferation. In addition, it continued to expand its relationships beyond its traditional DoD and intelligence community consumers to include the Department of Homeland Security and other domestic non-DoD agencies. In July, AFMIC’s growth in roles and responsibilities was formally recognized with a new designation as the National Center for Medical Intelligence. Established by the Secretary of Defense as the primary producer and coordinator of all-source medical intelligence, NCMI prepares medical intelligence to protect U.S. interests worldwide while continuing uninterrupted support of our forces overseas.
NCMI faces new challenges, such as evaluating the potential for importation of foreign health threats to the United States and the potential impact of these threats to the health or welfare of U.S. forces stationed in the homeland, and through partner agencies, to U.S. citizens. The center will also evaluate the threat of global disease outbreaks such as avian flu and the health risks associated with the possible terrorist or criminal use of toxic industrial chemicals.
NCMI’s designation as a national center is a critical step in linking DoD force protection and homeland health protection. As demonstrated by the 2003 SARS outbreak, the 2003 mad cow disease outbreak, and the 2007 case of drug-resistant tuberculosis, diseases are not constrained by borders, and they can have significant medical, economic and security implications.
Based on the relationships it established as AFMIC, NCMI is creating formal partnerships with domestic agencies that will allow sharing a greater amount of knowledge and expertise as well as focus on a broader range of foreign medical threats to the U.S. military and civilian personnel, allies, and other critical national interests. Examples include pandemic flu, avian flu, or other animal diseases that could potentially threaten the United States.
DIA and DHS have signed a memorandum of agreement formally establishing DHS as a NCMI founding partner, marking an important milestone in the growing integration between the intelligence community and homeland health protection. By forming these partnerships, the center establishes a formal network for enhanced situational awareness and early warning, which will strengthen the integrated picture of health threats to the U.S. citizens at home and abroad. The men and women at the National Center for Medical Intelligence continue in their commitment to their colleagues in the Armed forces. That same level of expertise and skill will now be employed on behalf of all Americans at home and abroad. •
Colonel M. Rizzo is the director of the National Center for Medical Intelligence.
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