The most troubling thing about the Centers for Disease Control’s recent disclosure that 81 agency employees may have been exposed to live anthrax last month is that it wasn’t the first lapse of its kind.
Government watchdogs have warned for years about weaknesses in federal labs dealing with dangerous bugs. The CDC’s own report on the June incident details four other times that pathogens inappropriately left high-security labs since 2006, including an earlier case involving anthrax. While investigating the latest mishap, CDC Director Tom Frieden also discovered that a contagious strain of avian flu was unintentionally shipped to a lower security Department of Agriculture lab in March.
“What we’re seeing is a pattern that we missed, and the pattern is an insufficient culture of safety,” Frieden told a congressional panel on Wednesday. There may be more disclosures to come as the agency reviews its practices, he said.
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