Pentagon finds fault with anthrax inactivation procedures

WASHINGTON — An investigation into how Defense Department labs sent live anthrax spores to researchers in the United States and seven other countries did not find a single root cause but concluded that protocols to inactivate the bacteria were deficient, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

A 38-page report on the discovery of the live anthrax shipments found that Defense Department personnel responsible for sterilizing the anthrax samples at four locations had followed their own protocols correctly.

But the protocols were different at each site, and at one — Dugway Proving Ground in Utah — the doses of radiation failed to sterilize the anthrax spores, and testing done afterward failed to detect the live spores, the report said.

Four Defense Department facilities ship inactivated anthrax to research labs in the United States and abroad to help develop medical countermeasures that could be used to protect troops in the event an adversary uses anthrax as a biological weapon.

The inadvertent shipment of live anthrax spores came to light on May 22 when a private company notified the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that some of the inactivated spores in its possession were live.

The investigation found 86 facilities in the United States and countries including South Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada and Britain received live spores from samples that originated at Dugway, a facility whose output of inactivated anthrax far exceeds that of other defense labs.

"The low numbers of live spores found in inactivated DoD samples did not pose a risk to the general public," the report said. "Nonetheless, the shipment of live BA (Bacillus anthracis) samples outside of the select agent program restrictions (at any concentration) is a serious breach of regulations."

The report said there was insufficient information in the broader scientific community "to guide the development of thoroughly effective protocols" to inactivate anthrax spores and test their viability.

The report recommended that the four facilities standardize anthrax inactivation procedures and establish what radiation doses are needed to inactivate the different strains of anthrax with the same equipment used to produce the inactivated samples.

It also recommended lengthening the time between irradiating the anthrax and testing its viability to ensure it is not able to repair itself.

"It is clear that BA (Bacillus anthracis) spores are particularly difficult to kill and live spores injured by irradiation may be able to repair their injuries over time," the report said.