Task Force Dagger Foundation (TFD) Managing Director Keith David and the Alliance for Clinical Research Excellence and Safety (ACRES) President and CEO Greg Koski announced that their nonprofit charitable organizations have established a strategic alliance to address the grave health challenges impacting America’s elite special operations forces and their families through application of ACRES systems-based approaches to accelerate research and advance integrated care.   

Task Force Dagger, drawn from units of the U.S. Special Operations Command USSOCOM, was the designation of the Special Forces elements that conducted the initial invasion of Afghanistan following the terrorist attack on the U.S. on September 11th, 2001.

Founded in 2009, the Task Force Dagger Foundation provides assistance not covered by the Military, DOD, VA, or their insurance to wounded, ill or injured U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) members and their families, responding to urgent needs and providing next-generation health solutions for issues facing our service members, particularly in the areas of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS) and environmental exposures.

To date, Task Force Dagger Foundation has supported the U.S. Special Operations Command with approximately $3.4M in support to over 1,600 families. The Foundation‘s Special Operations Forces (SOF) Health Initiatives Program takes a comprehensive systems biology approach known as Functional Medicine including advanced functional diagnostic health assessments such as biochemical and metabolic analysis, neuroendocrine testing, genetic testing and extensive diagnostic testing for occupational and environmental exposures such as heavy metals and other deployment related exposures. 

The SOF Health Initiatives Program offers a comprehensive patient-centric systems approach to resolving health complaints and creates an environment conducive to healing and recovery based on each individual’s biochemical individuality and genetic uniqueness.

Under their alliance agreement, ACRES, a multi-stakeholder collaborative committed to accelerating clinical research and medicines development in the public interest, will apply the integrated systems model developed for the Moonshot on Cancer to the functional medicine paradigm adopted by the Task Force Dagger Foundation.

The SOF Health Initiatives Program has teamed up with multiple organizations such as the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, EXOS, Millennium Health TBI, The Brain Treatment Center (USC), CERESCAN, InLight Wellness and the Elk Institute to offer a complete start to finish program that merges and optimizes health and wellness. 

ACRES Chief Technology Officer and Board member Bob Stewart and Geoffrey Dardia, founding director of the SOF Health Initiatives Program, masterminded the creation of the strategic alliance.  

“ACRES people-focused, technology-supported model is based upon a coalition of major academic, government and private-sector organizations across the healthcare, clinical research and the medicines development domains. It is ideally suited and immediately applicable to the needs and goals of the Task Force Dagger Foundation’s SOF Health Initiatives and will help our special forces who sacrifice so much for us all. We are thrilled to be involved in this effort,” said Stewart.

Keith David shared Stewart’s enthusiasm. “We at the Task Force Dagger Foundation are pleased to partner with ACRES and work together to research, find, and provide solutions to issues faced by many of our service members, veterans and their families. Our service members and their families are affected by the environmental and occupational hazards they encounter every day in the defense of our country. We must find the root causes of the illnesses, treat patients, and not merely manage diseases. We look forward to working with ACRES to be part of the solution for our brave warriors their families and collaboratively spread these solutions to all.”