SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND’S QUEST FOR FREEZE DRIED PLASMA (FDP): FDP is an emergency dehydrated version of blood plasma. Plasma requires refrigeration. FDP doesn’t. It’s easy to see why SOCOM was interested. But when it came to obtaining FDP for U.S. soldiers, the enemy was the Food and Drug Administration.

“…SOCOM has been using French FDP, which the French military has been producing and using since 1994. After 2001 SOCOM became aware of allied special operations troops using it and in 2010 sought to get it for American troops. No American firm produced FDP because earlier (late 1940s) efforts were abandoned because of seemingly insoluble contamination problems.

The French military solved those contamination problems and produced it for use by French troops operating in distant parts of the world. By 2010 SOCOM was still trying to find an American supplier of FDP. The problem was that in the United States the FDA (Food and Drugs Administration) needed an American firm to produce FDP that they could put through their testing and approval process.

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