An FYI for those who are not aware:
Before there was a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there was an agency called the US Public Health Service that filled a similar role. Among the agency’s accomplishments...they originally commissioned the Tuskegee syphilis experiment that paid doctors and nurses not to diagnose men with syphilis and report for 40 years how their bodies degraded to the point of death, even though penicillin was a known cure.
Tuskegee began in 1932 and ended in 1972. In the interim, CDC was formed and it took over control over that study. CDC is officially a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, along with the National Institutes of Health.
While the US Public Health Service mostly morphed into CDC, the Public Health Services Commissioned Corps continues. The PHS Commissioned Corps is one of eight uniformed services—which is another way to say armed forces.
They are *generally* non-militarized, but they can become part of the military.
It is essentially a bridge between the CDC and the military that is authorized to use force. This is the group that roughed up American relief workers who were kept in isolation after they returned from working with ebola patients in Africa.
Just some info in case they are mobilized and no one has any idea who these rough uniformed people are.