Pentagon finds third batch of active anthrax

A third “master batch” of anthrax has been discovered at a U.S. military lab in Utah, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday.

The batch was found as part of an investigation launched after it was revealed last week that the Defense Department had unwittingly shipped live anthrax spores, which were supposed to have been dead or inactive, to multiple laboratories across the country and internationally.

The Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah has shipped the suspect anthrax to a total of 12 states and three countries, including Canada, South Korea and Australia, Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said.

So far only one anthrax sample, cultured at a laboratory in Maryland, has produced active anthrax spores, according to the Pentagon.

But tests on three separate source batches at Dugway have now shown that the samples — if cultured in a laboratory — are capable of producing active anthrax spores, Warren said.

An ongoing Centers for Disease Control probe aims to determine whether the procedure for deactivating the anthrax before shipment was inadequate or if there was a failure to follow proper procedures, Warren said.

Warren said that the “scale and scope” of the problem remain under investigation. Still, the Pentagon says there is no threat to public health, and no sign anyone has been infected.

A briefing with senior Pentagon officials to address the outstanding questions was scheduled for Wednesday at 2 p.m. in Arlington, Virginia.

Another Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the press, said later Tuesday that its investigation has revealed shipments of incompletely neutralized anthrax were sent to the Pentagon’s police force, Pentagon Force Protection Agency, in 2006. That batch has been found to have the potential to grow active spores.

The agency has offices both inside the building and at other locations on the Pentagon reservation, the senior Defense Department official said. 

The sample was used to test and calibrate biothreat detection devices, Pentagon officials have said. The official said the amounts of anthrax used in these tests is typically about a tenth of the amount it would take to infect a person, if active anthrax spores were inhaled directly, and that there have been no reports of anyone harmed by exposure.

With wire services