Army Anthrax Error Causes Scare in 9 States
Military authorities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating the Army's accidental shipment of live anthrax samples.
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno says officers believe human error probably wasn't a factor in the incident. Instead they think it may have happened due to a failure in the technical process of killing or inactivating anthrax samples.
The anthrax was shipped by FedEx to government and commercial labs in at least nine states and a U.S. military facility in South Korea.
Four people at labs in Delaware, Texas and Wisconsin were recommended to get antibiotics as a precaution, although they are not sick. And about two dozen people are being treated for possible exposure at Osan Air Base in South Korea.
Steve Erickson, of the volunteer military watchdog group Citizens Education Project, said the incident isn't cause for panic but suggests more oversight is needed.
"Ever since 9/11, there's been a propensity to throw money at biodefense," Erickson said. "When you allow these activities to blossom and burgeon over a period of years without any effective oversight, you are asking for trouble."
The mistaken shipment of live anthrax samples originated at the Dugway Proving Ground, a military post in a desolate stretch of the Utah desert that has been testing chemical weapons since it opened in 1942.
Test facilities like Dugway are intended to develop ways to defend against biochemical warfare, which some fear could be used by terrorists, said Barry M. Blechman, co-founder of the Stimson Center, a nonpartisan global security group in Washington.
