U. S. sent live anthrax to Alberta, Winnipeg: DND

The U. S. military inadvertently sent what is believed to be live anthrax to the Department of National Defence’s research facilities in Alberta as well as a federal microbiology lab in Winnipeg.

The anthrax was sent in 2006 to the Winnipeg lab, and then in 2007 two vials of anthrax were sent to Defence Research and Development Suffield Research Centre at CFB Suffield, about 50 kilometres northwest of Medicine Hat.

“The DRDC Suffield Research Centre has identified the relevant sample and confirmed that all appropriate measures to ensure containment are in place,” Department of National Defence spokesman Daniel Le Bouthillier said Tuesday night. “The samples pose no risk to personnel from the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces and to the Canadian public.”

The Public Health Agency of Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg recently received notification from the U. S. military that a testing kit it received in August 2006 could also contain live anthrax bacterium.

“The testing kit was intended to enable the ( laboratory) to validate its anthrax detection tests to ensure the laboratory could accurately detect the bacteria that causes anthrax,” explained Patrick Gaebel, spokesman for the Public Health Agency of Canada.

The kit should have contained dead or inactive bacteria, he added.

The laboratory has located the testing kit in its secure inventory and has confirmed that it has not been used for over five years, Gaebel said. “There is very low risk of illness and there have been no reports of illness among the staff at the ( laboratory) who would have worked with the kit, over five years ago.”

Le Bouthillier said DND records indicate that the vials sent in 2007 also had not been accessed in the last five years.

The Pentagon has been scrambling after it was revealed last week that potentially live anthrax was sent by mistake from the U. S. Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah to a number of facilities around the world.

A key question is why Dugway’s anthrax samples were not rendered inactive, or dead, before sending them to research labs. In addition, questions have been asked why the shipments were not detected earlier.