Emergency trainees exposed to ricin
Lab mistakenly shipped deadly toxin for use in classes at a first-responder center in Ala.
Because of yet another mix-up with bioterror pathogens, a federal terrorism response training center in Alabama mistakenly exposed more than 9,600 firefighters, paramedics and other students to a deadly toxin over the past five years.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Center for Domestic Preparedness blames an outside laboratory for a series of shipping errors since 2011 that resulted in the first-responder training center using in its classes a potentially lethal form of ricin powder. The poison, made from castor beans, is capable of killing at small doses.
The training center said it submitted order forms asking for a type of ricin extract that is unlikely to cause serious harm. Officials from Toxin Technology, the Florida company that sent nine shipments to the center since 2011, told USA TODAY that its ricin products were all accurately labeled as “RCA60” — a scientific name for the whole ricin toxin, which can be deadly.
It’s unclear why training center staff didn’t recognize for years that they were working with a far more dangerous substance. There is no antidote to treat ricin poisoning.
After issuing repeated statements to USA TODAY since Monday solely blaming the vendor, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate called Thursday for the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General to investigate. The training center had suspended all training with biological agents.
Former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge said he’s stunned that over the past five years, the training center never verified that it was receiving the less-toxic ricin product it thought it ordered.
“It’s beyond careless and outrageous. It’s almost malfeasance,” Ridge said.
Nobody was sickened by the exposures, FEMA spokeswoman Alexa Lopez said. Students, who were being trained to detect the presence of biological agents, wore protective gear during the exercises. Workers at the Anniston, Ala., training center prepared ricin training materials in special biosafety cabinets designed to protect against exposures.
Still, Ridge and other national security experts said the ricin mix-up is the latest high-profile incident showing lax safety practices at U.S. biodefense facilities. Hundreds of government, military, private and university laboratories nationwide possess potential bioterror pathogens, which the government calls “select agents,” such as those that cause anthrax, botulism and plague. They’re used in research and to create vaccines, treatments and detection equipment.
In 2014, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made mistakes with anthrax specimens that resulted in dozens of the agency’s lab workers being potentially exposed to the deadly bacteria. In 2015, the Pentagon discovered that an Army lab in Utah had been mistakenly shipping live anthrax — labeled as killed — to dozens of labs in the USA and abroad for more than a decade.
A USA TODAY investigation in 2015 found hundreds of safety incidents at labs nationwide and a lax and secretive system of oversight of potential bioterror pathogens that hides serious incidents from the public.
Investigators from the Federal Select Agent Program, which regulates facilities that work with potential bioterror pathogens, traveled this week to the company that supplied the ricin to the FEMA training center. The pro- gram is jointly run by the CDC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Neither the CDC nor FEMA would name the vendor that supplied the ricin to the training facility when asked by The Anniston
Star, which first revealed the incident, nor to USA TODAY. USA TODAY determined through its reporting the vendor was Toxin Technology in Sarasota, Fla.
Bill Rose, manager of Toxin Technology, said it is company policy not to discuss its clients. He told USA TODAY the company’s records show products were labeled as “Ricin RCA60.”
Information provided to USA TODAY by officials from Toxin Technology and FEMA conflict in several ways and raise significant questions about how ricin materials were ordered and shipped over the years.
In its statements, FEMA has repeatedly said the material mixup was “due to an error by the supplier,” and the “intended use declaration” forms the training center submitted specified the center sought “Ricin Chain A.”
The ricin toxin has two components, referred to as A and B chains. Both need to be present to cause serious harm.
FEMA officials said their intent was to use the A-chain ricin in its programs because it was safer and would still react with detection equipment during training classes as if it were the more dangerous whole ricin toxin.
“In November 2016, while making a purchase of ricin Achain for training, staff at FEMA’s Center for Domestic Preparedness recognized an ongoing discrepancy in the documentation related to the type of ricin being provided,” FEMA said in a statement. The agency wouldn’t provide any details about the documentation.
The Toxin Technology catalog does not list any A-chain ricin products — only a whole ricin product. FEMA told USA TODAY the product it ordered wasn’t in the company’s catalog but a specialty product.
Raoul Reiser, who founded Toxin Technology in 1984 and sold it to a partner about three years ago, told USA TODAY he remembers supplying A-chain ricin products to the FEMA training facility.
Reiser said that although the A-chain ricin product wasn’t in Toxin Technology’s catalog, it was purchased by many customers as far away as Singapore.
He said Toxin Technology would buy A-chain ricin in liquid form from the biological supply company Vector Labs, then turn it into a powdered form for resale.
Officials at Vector Laboratories told USA TODAY their records show they never sold A-chain ricin to Toxin Technology — only whole ricin toxin.
Reiser said he was surprised to hear this. “I was under the impression we were buying the Achain toxin,” he said Wednesday night. He said Toxin Technology’s purchasing was handled by Paul Bina.
Bina, who is listed on Toxin Technology’s website as vice president and lab manager, said he was instructed to purchase whole ricin toxin.
“At no time did we ever have Ricin A Chain,” Bina said. He said all ricin produced by Toxin Technology was “correctly identified as ‘RCA60’ on all shipping and manufacturing documents.”
After USA TODAY asked FEMA to produce documents showing how the ricin products it received were labeled, the agency called for the inspector general investigation.
“It’s beyond careless and outrageous. It’s almost malfeasance.” Former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge