U.S. military mistakenly ships live anthrax to labs in 9 states

The U.S. military mistakenly sent live anthrax bacteria to laboratories in nine U.S. states and a U.S. air base in South Korea, after apparently failing to properly inactivate the bacteria last year, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. The Pentagon said there was no known suspected infection or risk to the public. But four U.S. civilians have been started on preventive measures called post-exposure prophylaxis, which usually includes the anthrax vaccine, antibiotics or both.

Out of an abundance of caution, (the Defense Department) has stopped the shipment of this material from its labs pending completion of the investigation.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steve Warren

Researchers at a lab designed to handle extremely dangerous pathogens sent what they believed were killed samples of anthrax to another CDC lab, one with fewer safeguards and therefore not authorized to work with live anthrax. Scores of CDC employees could have been exposed to the live anthrax, but none became ill.