Pentagon Stops Anthrax Shipments as Scandal Grows
More shipments of anthrax identified by the Pentagon.
The Pentagon has stopped shipping anthrax after potentially sending live samples of the deadly pathogen to at least 28 labs in the United States and three in Australia, Canada, and South Korea, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday.
The Pentagon has stopped shipping anthrax after potentially sending live samples of the deadly pathogen to at least 28 labs in the United States and three in Australia, Canada, and South Korea, a Defense Department spokesman said Tuesday.
Government and commercial labs in at least 12 states have received anthrax spores from the U.S. Army facility in Dugway, Utah, widening the prospect of infection and highlighting the military’s sloppiness in handling sensitive material. The breach is sure to spark fresh anger in Congress, which was targeted in a lethal anthrax attack in 2001.
The Pentagon’s No. 2 official, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, has ordered an investigation to see how many of the samples were, in fact, live when they left Dugway. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is working to trace back each sample to three master anthrax batches at the Utah lab to determine if they are lethal. The batches were thought to have been rendered inactive.
Defense Department spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said only one sample — shipped to a lab in Maryland — so far has tested positive for live spores. He insisted there is no danger to the public.
The Pentagon “is in the process of determining the scale and scope” of the problem, Warren told reporters Tuesday. Even so, he predicted more labs in the coming days will report receiving anthrax samples from Dugway. Already, the CDC has estimated that anthrax was shipped to 28 labs in the United States.
The military launched its probe of the anthrax shipments after acknowledging the Maryland lab’s live sample last month. Last weekend, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that he will find out who was responsible for the mistaken shipments and will “hold them accountable.”
Defense officials have been hard-pressed to explain how, and why, so many shipments of potentially live anthrax could have been shipped unknowingly. Most were shipped between March 2014 and April 2015, although one was sent to Australia as far back as 2008.
The domestic labs are spread across the country in California, Utah, Texas, Tennessee, Virginia, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Washington state.
Photo credit: George Frey/Getty Images
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