Last Updated

10 Dec 2002

Source: Washington Post, March 13, 2002.

Tex. Lab Worker Handling Anthrax Specimens Is Infected

By Rick Weiss, Washington Post Staff Writer

A Texas laboratory worker (case addenda) processing specimens from last fall's anthrax attacks under a federal contract has become ill with the skin form of anthrax, the first domestic case of the disease since November and a reminder that the ongoing bioterrorism investigation continues to carry risks.

The worker, whom federal officials declined to identify, is being treated with antibiotics and is recovering from the infection, which appears to have been acquired in the laboratory.

But a preliminary investigation by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta suggests there were irregularities in the way the potentially infectious specimens were handled by the worker after he became ill. That has raised concerns among some experts that some of the specimens under study from last fall's attacks may not be subject to adequate accounting.

The patient was working in a private laboratory, one of several with which the CDC has contracted in recent months to work through a backlog of specimens collected during the peak of last fall's attacks. The specimens include tens of thousands of environmental swabs that investigators hope will give them a measure of how far and wide anthrax spores spread at contaminated sites. Each swab is being tested for the presence of the bacterium that causes anthrax.

The lab worker went to his doctor March 4 because of an unusual skin lesion on his neck, said CDC spokesman Tom Skinner. The doctor swabbed the lesion. But rather than sending the swab to a county or state health lab for analysis, as is standard practice when anthrax is suspected, the doctor gave the swab to the worker, who brought it to the lab where he worked. There he or his co-workers analyzed the specimen, obtaining preliminary evidence of cutaneous anthrax.

The lab staff contacted the CDC, which late last week sent a team of investigators to look into the apparent laboratory exposure. Yesterday, tests conducted by the CDC on the doctor's office specimen confirmed it was positive for the anthrax bacterium.

"We still don't know the circumstances in the lab that led to him getting infected," Skinner said.

Several experts said that the worker's efforts to keep the specimens under his personal control appeared to be unusual. And although anthrax bacteria are not generally capable of causing deadly inhalational anthrax unless they are processed in special ways, some said, the apparent lack of tight control over specimens at the lab was worrisome.

"It's a legitimate concern," said University of Minnesota bioterror expert Michael Osterholm. "You have to wonder how all this stuff being sent off to labs is being handled."

Skinner emphasized that this lab is not a member of the CDC's Laboratory Response Network, a web of about 110 facilities around the country under contract with CDC to help out in public health emergencies. Rather, he said, it was one of several additional labs helping with the huge number of specimens that need to be tested.