WASHINGTON — Suspected live anthrax inadvertently was sent by the U.S. military to at least 51 facilities in 17 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, including the agency that provides security at the Pentagon, defense officials said Wednesday.
Suspected live anthrax also was sent to Australia, Canada and South Korea.
Pentagon officials, in their first extended comments about the issue since it was disclosed a week ago, told reporters that the number of confirmed shipments is likely to continue growing. But the problem should not be blown out of proportion, they said, adding that many safeguards were in place to prevent a public outbreak of the deadly bacterial disease.
“You have to accept that these numbers are in flux and are changing constantly as we get more results,” said Frank Kendall, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, during a news conference. “I wouldn’t obsess about the numbers at this point.”
Ten samples in nine states have tested positive for live anthrax so far, defense officials said. All 10 originated at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, the Army laboratory that irradiated them and shipped them across the country, believing they were dead. The other suspected samples are either still in testing or are set to be tested in coming days in Atlanta by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The problem was discovered May 22 at an undisclosed commercial laboratory in Maryland that received a sample that originated at Dugway and had been distributed by the Army Edgewood Chemical Biological Center, a military facility at Aberdeen Proving Ground, northeast of Baltimore.
Civilian scientists began culturing the anthrax believing it was dead. They called for help from the CDC when they found that was not the case.
Since then, the CDC has launched an investigation to determine what happened, and the Pentagon has promised its own internal review.
The Defense Department assessment will focus heavily on why the irradiation process and the testing done afterward to make sure the anthrax samples involved were dead did not work.
Navy Cmdr. Franca Jones, a Pentagon microbiologist, told reporters that the anthrax was shipped in liquid form, which is less infectious than powder, and put inside a vial enveloped by several layers of protection, including a plastic bag, absorbent material and a plastic container.
Those items are then put in a larger container holding dry ice and shipped through commercial shipping services.
The only difference in the process between shipping live and dead anthrax is an additional label on boxes containing live spores, she said.
They are labeled to make it explicit they contain an infectious material.
Defense officials said Wednesday that the facilities believed to have suspected live samples include the four laboratories that irradiate them: Dugway, Edgewood and Fort Detrick in Maryland, and a facility in Maryland affiliated with the Naval Medical Research Center, which has headquarters in Dahlgren, Va.
No one has shown any symptoms of the disease, officials said.
Thirty-one people, including eight civilians and 23 Defense Department troops or employees, are now taking preventive antibiotic prophylaxis designed to fight anthrax.
