WASHINGTON -- Federal government laboratories in Atlanta improperly sent potentially deadly pathogens, including anthrax, botulism bacteria and a virulent bird flu virus, to other laboratories in five separate incidents over the past decade, officials said Friday.
The errors prompted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halt operations at its bioterrorism rapid response lab and an influenza lab and impose a moratorium on any biological material leaving numerous other CDC labs.
"These events should never have happened," CDC Director Thomas Frieden said. The American people "may be wondering whether we're doing what we need to do to keep them safe and to keep our workers safe," he said. "I'm disappointed, and frankly I'm angry about it."
No one has become infected or fallen ill in those incidents, and all the organisms were safely disposed of, Frieden said.
The CDC disclosed the errors in a report Friday detailing safety lapses that occurred last month, when as many as 84 workers may have been exposed to live anthrax after employees unknowingly sent live samples of the bacteria from one CDC lab to other labs.
As part of that internal investigation, the agency found that "this is not the first time an event of this nature has occurred," the report said. "At the time of this writing, CDC is aware of four other such incidents in the past decade."
In one case, a sample of flu virus contaminated with the deadly H5N1 influenza virus was sent in March from a CDC lab in Atlanta to a U.S. Department of Agriculture laboratory in Athens, Ga. CDC workers became aware of the contamination about six weeks ago but apparently never reported it.
"I learned about it less than 48 hours ago," Frieden said, calling it "an unacceptable delay."
Frieden said he has established a high-level working group to review and approve safety on a lab-by-lab basis. He also appointed a top official to be the single point of accountability.
Michael Osterholm, a bioterrorism expert and director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said all the mishaps are troubling, but he singled out the one involving H5N1, the bird flu strain that has infected 650 people worldwide since 2003, killing more than half of them.
"Somehow, you had this potentially lethal virus cross-contaminating what should have been a relatively safe virus," Osterholm said. "When you can have that type of contamination occur, then have the specimen sent out for others to handle, not knowing what's in it, that's a really significant issue."
A Section on 07/12/2014