Bioweapons51 labs in 17 states may have received live anthrax samples: Pentagon

Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work said yesterday (Wednesday) that the Pentagon may have shipped live anthrax samples to fifty-one labs in seventeen states and the District of Columbia, as well as three foreign countries.

Work is heading the investigative team the Pentagon has tasked with looking into the matter. The team also includes Frank Kendall, the military’s top acquisition chief; Navy Cdr. Franca Jones, chief of medical programs for chemical and biological defense, and Stephen Redd, a top official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Work also said that it was likely that the numbers of labs which might have received live anthrax will go up as the Pentagon’s investigation into the shipments continues. Some of the shipments were made via FedEx. When the anthrax samples were put in the mail, it was believed that they were inactive, or dead.

There have been “no suspected or confirmed cases of anthrax infections” as a result of the shipments, Work said, noting that the samples sent out had low concentrations of the pathogen.

“We know of no risk to the general public from these samples,” Work stressed.

Jones said the threat to the general public and commercial shippers who handled the boxes containing live anthrax as “zero.” The concentration of live anthrax in a vial is too low to infect a healthy person, and it is in liquid form and not breathable, she said. Further, the packaging in which it is sent has redundant features to prevent leaking.

USA Today reports that the four Defense Department laboratories which stockpile anthrax samples for research will test all previously “inactivated” samples to ensure that the anthrax is in fact dead. The department is testing more than 400 batches, with live anthrax found so far in four of those batches.

“That is why the numbers may rise,” Work said, adding that it takes ten days to test anthrax samples.

He said that the Pentagon will investigate why the anthrax samples were not properly killed, or inactivated, before they were shipped.

Work’s press conference was the first public accounting by the Pentagon of the investigation into the shipment of live anthrax samples.

All the samples shipped belonged to three lots, dating back to 2007, stored at the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. The anthrax agents in the lots were supposed to be dead, but some agents appear not to have been properly deactivated.

John Peterson, a microbiology professor working with anthrax in labs at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, told USA Today that scientists face challenges when they seek to kill anthrax spores, especially if some remnant of the pathogen is needed for testing detection equipment. Tests and sensors often are looking for certain proteins or nucleic acids associated with the pathogen, he said.

“The process of inactivating them is kind of a delicate one,” he said, noting that the method must be sufficient to kill all of the spores yet still leave something behind that’s reminiscent of the organism so the material can be used to test detection equipment.

“Spores, because of their nature, their very heavy outside coating make them resistant to drying or chemicals,” Peterson said in an interview with USA Today.

He noted that there is no single, best method for killing anthrax spores, and methods may vary among labs. Some use chemicals, others use radiation. The Dugway lab is reported to irradiating its anthrax specimens.

Last week, CDC’s investigators have raised questions about whether Dugway’s method was 100 percent effective in deactivation anthrax. “We have concern that the inactivation procedures, when followed properly, are inadequate to kill all spores, and the U.S. government is developing an approach to securing such possible samples from misuse,” wrote Daniel Sosin, deputy director of CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, in an e-mail to state officials Friday which was obtained by USA Today.