The U.S. Naval Academy announced April 9 it has proposed legislation to cease operating its dairy farm located in Gambrills, Md., but retain the land for the benefit of the Brigade of Midshipmen. But my ground rules are that the resulting situation benefit the Brigade of Midshipmen and that the land stay open, green and pristine and the land's agricultural nature be maintained. The Naval Academy Dairy Farm was established in 1911 to provide a safe supply of milk to the Brigade of Midshipmen after a typhoid fever outbreak was traced to milk from a commercial supplier. Legislation proposed for the FY98 Defense Authorization Bill would remove the requirement to produce milk. No appropriated funds are used in the operation of the dairy and the only customer is the Naval Academy itself.
Products are purchases using funds provided for subsistence of the midshipmen.
Prices are set to ensure a break-even operation. Navy assists Michigan State University in fight against blood disease courtesy of the NTC Great Lakes Bulletin Naval Hospital Great Lakes, Ill., mobilized its resources to help Michigan State University recently when the school discovered three cases of invasive meningococcal disease. Only two hours after receiving a request for assistance from the university, the hospital had five trained corpsmen, seven jet injector guns and extra supplies of vaccine ready to go. Great Lakes corpsmen spent four days in East Lansing giving vaccinations to thousands of students and training more than 100 nurses to use jet injector guns. The call for help from the Navy came when Michigan State realized their health clinic would be overwhelmed by the task of quickly immunizing 18,000 students.