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The Pentagon

Pentagon No. 2 to lead investigation into handling of anthrax

Tom Vanden Brook and Alison Young
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon plans to launch a high-level investigation into the mishandling of deadly anthrax samples following revelations Friday that additional infectious samples were inadvertently sent to a lab in Australia seven years ago, a Defense Department spokesman said.

Anthrax bacteria

The probe will be headed up by the Pentagon's No. 2 official, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, said Col. Steve Warren, the Pentagon's spokesman.

Work has directed Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Frank Kendall "to lead a comprehensive review of DoD laboratory procedures, processes, and protocols associated with inactivating anthrax," Warren said.

So far, Warren said, 24 laboratories in 11 states and two foreign countries are believed to have received suspect samples. The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the Bacillus anthracis specimens came from the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.

The scope of live anthrax samples could be much larger than currently known, according to a CDC email obtained by USA TODAY. The problem: It appears that the standard process that was used to kill anthrax by irradiation – even when properly followed -- isn't fully effective.

"We already know that more labs and more lots of inactivation failures with anthrax spores are being identified," warned Daniel Sosin, deputy director of CDC's Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, in the email late Friday to state officials. "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."

Dugway officials reviewed its samples after it was discovered that some live anthrax had been sent to labs in the United States and at a base in South Korea. It found that a batch from 2008 contained live anthrax. A sample of that batch had been sent to Australia, and officials there were notified to test it.

The discovery of the live sample in Australia — that was supposedly killed in 2008 — raises questions about whether more labs than currently known have received potentially dangerous specimens that their scientists assume are safe to work with without protective gear.

Maj. Eric Badger, a Pentagon spokesman, would not answer questions the protocols used at Dugway Proving Ground's labs to kill anthrax specimens or whether additional batches of anthrax or other infectious pathogens also may not have been thoroughly killed.

"Many of these questions will be answered throughout the CDC investigation," Badger said in an email. "We continue to work closely with the CDC in this effort. The investigation will reveal more information as it is conducted."

According to the CDC, on April 29 the supposedly killed anthrax specimens were shipped from a lab at Dugway to 18 labs in nine states. The labs received them the next day.

A lab in Maryland notified the Defense Department that the specimen it received was able to grow, raising concerns that others were also not thoroughly killed. Tests are ongoing at the CDC to determine whether any of the other specimens are live.

Four lab workers in three states – Delaware, Texas and Wisconsin – that received the specimens are currently taking antibiotics as a precaution after doing work with the specimens that resulted in aerosolized particles that have the potential to have been inhaled. If inhaled, anthrax spores can cause potentially fatal illness.

One sample was also sent to Osan Air Base in South Korea, where an additional 22 people may have been exposed on the base and are also being treated as a precaution, the U.S. Air Force has said.

Nobody has shown any signs of illness, CDC spokesman Jason McDonald said Friday.

As the investigation continues, state health departments are working to help decontaminate labs and advise workers who may have handled the live anthrax specimens. The samples had been sent to labs that are working with the military to develop a new diagnostic test to identify biological threats.

The growing scope of the military's mistakes with anthrax specimens comes after numerous high-profile lab accidents over the past year with dangerous pathogens.

"It is clear that the problems with the programs are deep-rooted and systematic," said Richard Ebright, a biosafety expert at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Ebright said all labs should have reviewed the effectiveness of their anthrax kill steps after the CDC last summer distributed anthrax specimens without validating they were really dead. "It is astonishing, and inexcusable, that the problems were not corrected after the 2014 CDC anthrax incident made it blindingly clear that anthrax inactivation procedures needed to be validated and anthrax inactivation success needed to be verified," Ebright said Friday.

The Delaware Department of Health and Social Services has been helping an unnamed private, commercial laboratory in its state that received one of the specimens, said communications director Jill Fredel. CDC alerted the state on May 23 that the lab had received one of the suspect samples. The lab relied on the accuracy of a "certificate of deactivation" that the Department of Defense had sent with the specimen, Fredel said Friday.

"The Delaware lab followed all the correct protocols and acted appropriately based upon the paperwork," she said. "The Delaware lab is in no way at fault."

Some lab officials say it's generally a best practice to never assume a sample labeled as killed really is dead — unless the you've verified that yourself.

"Simply put, trust but verify," said Scott Becker, executive director of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, which represents state health department labs. "It is simply good laboratory practice to assume that anything coming into the lab has something viable in it."

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