The U.S. Navy: America's Unrecognized Public Health Shield:

Not too many Navy people know their organization serves on the front line of America's disease defenses. Even fewer officers know--or even care--that the Navy occasionally beats the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention at disease detection, discovering, for example, the first domestic case of H1N1 Influenza.

The Navy's three angry associations of ship-drivers, aviators and bubbleheads don't give a flip that the Navy has long been a global public health force for good.

And that's a bad, bad thing. Because the Navy's under-appreciated, under-resourced battalion of dedicated public health researchers are always struggling to find resources...or even friends--in their own organization! For this old Public Health hand, it's deeply, deeply distressing to watch. So I cheer whenever I see somebody out there trying to raise the Navy's unhealthily stealthy Public Health profile:

The Navy played a key role last spring in the discovery of the H1N1 influenza's presence in the United States, according to a senior Navy medical officer.

In April, technicians at the San Diego-based Naval Health Research Center encountered a puzzling influenza specimen provided by a 10-year-old military family member, said Navy Capt. Tanis Batsel Stewart, director of emergency preparedness and contingency support at the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery...

...The Navy has for years conducted influenza and other infectious-disease surveillance programs in conjunction with the other U.S. military services in partnership with foreign nations and public health organizations, Batsel Stewart said.

The U.S. military's infectious disease research capability "is the largest in the world," she said, noting the U.S. maintains labs in Egypt, Indonesia, Kenya, Peru and Thailand that fall under the auspices of the Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Surveillance and Response System.

More than 100 countries, "from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe," participate in the surveillance program, Batsel Stewart said.

A presidential directive established the response system, which falls under the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, in June 1996.

Maybe that's one of the reasons the "Global Force For Good" has some trouble resonating--because much of the Navy isn't aware of just what the heck it's doing.