Pentagon: Number of anthrax shipments accidentally shipped, doubles

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

The number of shipments of potentially live anthrax spores sent by mistake over the past decade now stands at 51 – double the number estimated by officials last week. What’s worse is that it may go even higher, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

 

“We expect this number may rise,” Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said during a Pentagon press briefing.

 

No suspected or confirmed cases. The anthrax spores that survived irradiation are "too low to contaminate healthy individuals."

 

Additional officials, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said it's possible that shipments were sent to more than four dozen laboratories in the U.S. and abroad.

 

The Pentagon has repeatedly asserted that the mistakes posed no public health hazard.

 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is leading an investigation of the matter.

 

Details on the extent of the problem are expected to be presented at a news conference Wednesday by Robert Work, the deputy defense secretary. Last Friday Work ordered a comprehensive review of laboratory procedures associated with killing, or inactivating, live anthrax for shipment to labs for research and other purposes, including for calibrating biological threat sensors such as those used by a number of federal government agencies, including the Pentagon.

 

The scope of the problem has grown almost daily since the Pentagon first acknowledged it publicly last Wednesday.

________

 

Well, I feel safer now...