WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon said Friday that the Army may have mistakenly sent live anthrax to a laboratory in Australia in 2008, in addition to the suspected live anthrax it sent this year to more than a dozen labs in the U.S. and South Korea.
Details of the Australia case were sketchy Friday, but it suggested more extensive flaws in procedures used by the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah to ensure that anthrax samples were made fully inert before shipping them to labs.
Dugway, in a desolate stretch of the Utah desert, has been testing chemical weapons since it opened in 1942.
Prior to word of the Australia shipment, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said suspect samples from Dugway had been sent to 18 labs in nine U.S. states and a military base in South Korea. CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said the agency is testing to see which ones were live.
The results are coming in slowly, she said, and the first full set of findings isn’t expected until next week. It was unclear Friday whether the Pentagon would take additional steps to investigate on its own or review Dugway’s procedures.
A Wisconsin commercial laboratory, meanwhile, confirmed Friday it was among the labs that received live anthrax spores last week. BBI Detection of Madison, which employs fewer than 20 people, remains partially closed. No employees have gotten sick or are in danger, and there is no danger to the public, said Jackie Lustig, a spokeswoman for Massachusetts-based Alere Inc., which owns BBI.
CDC spokesman Jason McDonald said four people at labs in Delaware, Texas and Wisconsin were recommended to get antibiotics as a precaution, although they are not sick. About two dozen people were being treated for possible exposure at Osan Air Base in South Korea.
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McCombs reported from Salt Lake City. Associated Press reporter Mike Stobbe contributed from New York.
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