Anthrax scare due to lab mix up

Mar 16 2005

A mistake at the laboratory that did the initial testing as a result of the anthrax scare at the Pentagon, has been blamed for the false alarms which saw hospitals alerted, 900 workers prescribed antibiotics, and closed three area mail facilities that handle Pentagon-bound mail.

The mistaken conclusion was confirmed by a Defence Department laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. Officials.

The two-day scare that reminded people of the fatal bioterrorism attacks of 2001, proved to be a false alarm after definitive tests for the deadly spores came back negative.

Apparently the confusion stemmed from a mistake at the laboratory that did the initial testing, and the mistaken conclusion was confirmed by a Defence Department laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md.

Workers at the initial laboratory, Commonwealth Biotechnology Inc. in Richmond, Va., contaminated the sample taken from the Pentagon with actual anthrax that is kept for comparison purposes, said an anonymous Homeland Security official, and would explain why the sample came back as positive for anthrax.

The initial sample, when delivered to Fort Detrick was possibly already contaminated, which confirmed the presence of anthrax. "It had already been handled by the contractor,'' said Caree Vander Linden, spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick.Further tests proved negative and the initial error was realized, officials said.

Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant defence secretary for health affairs, says there is no suggestion of anything remotely like the events of October 2001, and it is hoped that with further information any threat will be completely ruled out.

He said some additional tests remained incomplete.Workers advised to take antibiotics would be told to stop if those tests also proved negative, Winkenwerder said.

In 2001 anthrax-by-mail attacks killed five people and panicked Americans still raw from the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. There have been many false reports of anthrax in government mailrooms since then. But these recent alarms, set off by two independent alert systems, are now believed to be a coincidence.

The first was caused by a filter on a device that screens mail for chemical and biological agents on the Pentagon grounds, then another alert was set off at a nearby satellite mail processing facility.

Despite the panic at the Pentagon, Virginia officials received fewer than 10 calls from concerned residents, an indication perhaps of a change in how the public now confronts a potential crisis. State homeland security director George W. Foresman said the government response to the scare - on the local, state and federal levels - was far better coordinated than in 2001.

Anthrax can be spread through contact with the skin. A more serious form of the disease, inhalation anthrax, is contracted by breathing in spores. After the 2001 attacks, health officials concluded that some people can contract the disease through exposure to a small number of the microbes.