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Apparent Unauthorized Shipment of Anthrax
November 20, 2001
Investigative Lead - A researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory apparently received an unauthorized shipment of anthrax from a facility at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, the latest indicator of security problems at the nation's nuclear labs. The security breach also illustrates the ease with which scientific researchers apparently can obtain the potentially lethal material.
Credible sources tell the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) that the security violation is believed to have occurred after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington D.C. The shipment should not have been mailed to the Human Research Lab at Los Alamos because neither the researcher nor the laboratory possess a bio level 3 permit for anthrax. Such anthrax shipments are restricted to hospitals or research facilities with the high level authorization.
This unconfirmed information was obtained by POGO in the course of its continuing investigation into serious security vulnerabilities at Los Alamos and the nation's nine other major facilities that store nuclear weapons-grade plutonium and highly-enriched uranium. An October POGO report concluded that the government fails to protect against mock terrorist attacks more than 50 percent of the time. The report "U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Security At Risk." can be viewed here.
Founded in 1981, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is an independent nonprofit that investigates and exposes corruption and other misconduct in order to achieve a more effective, accountable, open, and ethical federal government.
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