The Pentagon now believes that at least 51 labs in 17 states, the District of Columbia and three countries may have mistakenly received live anthrax from U.S. military stocks. Senior Pentagon officials expect the numbers to increase as additional testing of anthrax lots continues and stress that there is no risk to the general public because the concentrations of anthrax involved are too low to affect an average person.
Four hundred lots of irradiated anthrax stored at four U.S. military facilities are being tested to see whether they contain any live anthrax. Four of those lots, from the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, have been found to contain a mix of live and inactivated anthrax. Investigators have pieced together that samples from those lots have been sent to 51 laboratories in 17 states, the District of Columbia, South Korea, Australia and Canada.
The states are California, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Ohio and North Carolina.
ABC’s Arlette Saenz joined us to discuss.
