Blast Boxers Hit Military Market to Protect Soldiers' Most Sensitive Areas

Oct. 29, 2010— -- Just the mere mention of manhood-protecting underwear inspires giggles, but a British company marketing Kevlar boxer shorts to soldiers on both sides of the pond is betting men in uniform will jump at the chance to protect their most sensitive area.

Blast Boxers have been tested by the British Ministry of Defense and got some interest at a U.S. Army trade show this week in Washington D.C. And urology experts say they could be a welcome barrier for genital combat injuries that are common, yet little-talked about.

"Once people get over the giggle factor they start to think about it in serious form," said Edward Schmitt, the U.S. regional executive with BCB International, which manufactures the boxers.

Selling in the United Kingdom for 54.50 British pounds -- about $86 in American currency -- the tight-fitting boxer shorts are made with knitted Kevlar from the inner thighs with panels running up the front and back. The shorts are designed not just to protect soldiers' genitals from flying shrapnel, but also the femoral artery, urological systems and peritoneal cavity in the abdomen, which houses the intestines.

"The [British] Ministry of Defense has just recently done some tests with them where they put together a mess of mannequins, if you will, scattered at specified distances from an IED blast," Schmitt said. "We passed with flying colors."

There are British soldiers, he said, that are also testing them out in the field.

Combat injuries to the genital and urological system, collectively known as urotrauma, are common with the blast injuries that have been so prevalent in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Col. Vito Imbasciani, a California urologist who is planning his third overseas deployment for next year, said he was routinely called into the operating room to assist while stationed at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany in 2006.

"Many of them had genital injures," he said. "I would say the greatest number of them, by my anecdotal evidence, were scrotal."

He recalled one 21-year-old airman who was hit with a mortar in 2004 that "caused him to lose, I think both legs, one hand and his genitals."

"[With] Blast injuries, especially if you're exposed, all parts of you are fair game," Imbasciani said. "When you wear your IDA -- your individual body armor -- and your Kevlar helmet, your extremities are exposed. And your penis is an extremity."

Those injuries, he said, can be devastating, both physically and emotionally.

"It's all fraught with emotional underlay when it comes to guys and their parts," he said.

Urology Experts Commend More Attention to 'Intensely Private' Injuries

While urotrauma in the military isn't tracked as specifically as other blast injures, a 2007 study published in the Journal of Urology recorded 98 genitourinary injuries in 76 patients out of the 2,712 trauma admissions to the United States Army Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad over an 11 month span.

The numbers overall could be higher. Karen Lencoski, federal manager, government relations and advocacy for the American Urological Association, said rough estimates they've been given range between 1 and 12.5 percent of all combat-related injuries.

It's enough to get Congress to take notice.

A bill right now is pending in committee that would direct the defense secretary to establish a commission on urotrauma. And two of the bill's sponsors were able to put similar language in this 2011 fiscal year House National Defense Authorization Act directing the defense secretary to study medical training and research for combat-related genitourinary trauma.

"Urotrauma is not something that people talk about. These are injuries that kind of occur in silence," Lencoski said, calling it "intensely private and very embarrassing."

Lencoski hadn't heard of Blast Boxers, but said that "anything that we can do to protect our soldiers I think is a good thing."

Imbasciani agreed.

"I was never more afraid in Iraq then sitting in a Humvee and going from the base to the hospital because you're so exposed," he said. "I think I would have appreciated any gesture toward better protection down there."

Schmitt said BCB International is working on manufacturing the blast boxers for a U.S. market in compliance with the Berry Amendment, which requires defense products come from domestic sources. He estimates they'll be sold here for between $75 and $100, less expensive than a traditional flak jacket or vest.

Also in the works is a version of the Blast Boxers that are ergonomically designed for women. The female version, he said, will feature a wider swath of Kevlar above the groin to protect the reproductive organs.