Up to 18 labs in U.S. got live anthrax shipments

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said Thursday that as many as 18 labs around the country received live anthrax samples. Twenty-six people who may have been exposed, including 22 at an Air Force base in South Korea, are being medically treated as a precaution.

The incident is the latest in a string of high-profile mistakes involving federal labs.

The Atlanta-based CDC said labs in nine states received the Bacillus anthracis specimens from the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Shipments went to California, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Exact lab locations had not been identified, but "they are mostly private and some are operated by government and public institutions," said Jason McDonald, a spokesman for the CDC.

Richard Ebright, a biosafety expert at Rutgers in New Jersey, called the mistake "gross negligence."

"There is absolutely no excuse. Not for the shipping institution. Not for receiving institutions that failed to confirm inactivation upon receipt," Ebright said. "Both should lose, irrevocably, authorization for work with active or inactivated select agents."

Pentagon officials said there are no suspected or confirmed cases of anthrax infection in potentially exposed lab workers, and there is no risk to the general public.

Four lab workers in three states -- Texas, Delaware and Wisconsin -- were receiving precautionary antibiotics, McDonald confirmed.

One of the samples also was shipped to Osan Air Base in South Korea. The U.S. Air Force released a statement that 22 personnel may have been exposed on the base.

"All personnel were provided appropriate medical precautionary measures to include examinations, antibiotics and, in some instances, vaccinations," the Air Force said. "None of the personnel have shown any signs of possible exposure."

Anthrax spores can spread through the air and cause a deadly infection if not treated.

Army Col. Steve Warren said all 22 personnel in Osan are under treatment with the antibiotic Ciprofloxacin for exposure to anthrax. They include 10 soldiers, five airmen, four contractors and three government employees.

Warren said a civilian lab in Maryland informed authorities about live anthrax being inadvertently shipped. Notifications of the exposure occurred on May 22, he said.

Air Force officials said the sample was expected to be inert and used in a training lab. When it was discovered, it was contained and destroyed by a hazardous-materials team. The lab facility in Osan was cordoned off and decontaminated.

Samples from the U.S. labs that received the shipment will be transferred to the CDC or regional labs for more testing.

The Pentagon intended the samples to be used in an effort to develop a field-based test to identify biological threats in the environment.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., fired off a letter to Army Secretary John McHugh on Thursday, seeking a briefing about the safety lapse.

Nelson, a member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, said the incident "represents a serious breach of trust in the United States Army's obligation to keep our citizens and service members safe."

Similarly, bipartisan leaders of the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to CDC Director Tom Frieden and Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter.

"The Department's inadvertent transfer of live anthrax samples, just like similar incidents at the CDC last year, raise serious concerns about the sufficiency of inactivation protocols and procedures for studying dangerous pathogens," the leaders wrote.

The shipping mistake is the latest example of a lab sending to other labs specimens that were live — yet were thought to have been killed.

Last summer, dozens of workers at the CDC in Atlanta were potentially exposed to live anthrax after specimens were not properly inactivated before being transferred from a higher-containment lab to a lower-level lab that isn't supposed to work with such a dangerous pathogen in its live form.

Then in December, it happened again. A worker in one of CDC's biosafety level 4 labs in Atlanta — where scientists wear spacesuit-like, full-body protective gear that filters the air they breathe — accidentally confused some specimens and sent an un-killed sample from an Ebola experiment to a lower-level lab at the agency with minimal protections.

Nobody was infected in either incident.

Contributing: Tom Vanden Brook