U.S. anthrax probe reveals new bird flu mishap

Federal health officials on Friday disclosed a new safety breach at a high-security U.S. government laboratory involving dangerous avian flu, a lapse that came to light as they investigated the potential exposure of researchers to live anthrax bacteria.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said an internal probe found multiple failures by individual scientists and a lack of agency-wide safety policies led to the potential exposure of more than 80 lab workers to live anthrax at its Atlanta campus last month. Researchers in a high-security bioterror lab sent samples of what they thought were inactivated bacteria to colleagues in a lower-security lab, with fewer protections.

Investigators also discovered a previously unreported incident: Workers at a separate high-security CDC influenza lab sent samples containing a dangerous strain of bird flu to counterparts at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in March. Mishandling avian flu could have far graver consequences than anthrax does, though no one has been found to have been infected in either case.

The two incidents represent the latest in a series of breaches at the CDC in the last decade that are drawing fresh scrutiny from Congress, including questions about the agency's ability to oversee potentially dangerous research. The CDC said its findings provide a "wake-up call" to overhaul the standards governing experiments with deadly pathogens nationwide.