No cause seen in anthrax mishap

WASHINGTON — A monthlong Pentagon investigation could not identify a root cause as to why an Army testing facility in Utah mistakenly sent live anthrax samples to 86 commercial companies, academic institutions and federal laboratories around the globe.

The Pentagon released a report Thursday signed by a review committee made up of 21 scientific professionals that said all U.S. military personnel correctly followed protocols in which the samples were supposed to be rendered dead through irradiation.

“There is no single root cause to explain why the [anthrax] samples were incompletely inactivated, or why viability testing did not detect live [anthrax] spores,” the report said.

The report found some deficiencies in the established protocols — for example, it said there was the potential for live spores to contaminate the dead samples, and protocols were not standardized across all labs.

“The low numbers of live spores found in inactivated … samples did not pose a risk to the general public,” the report read. “Nonetheless, the shipment of live [anthrax] samples outside of the select agent program restrictions (at any concentration) is a serious breach of regulations.”