Two missing vials of anthrax are found

[MaineDem]

TRENTON, N.J. --Two vials of anthrax reported missing recently were discovered this week mislabeled at a state lab, and officials blame a clerical error.

Authorities said they lost track of the vials nearly two weeks ago. They were found this week among thousands of samples collected in an investigation of a postal facility where anthrax-tainted letters were handled between 2001 and 2004.

Nobody was hurt and no anthrax was released as a result of the error, authorities said Tuesday. An FBI investigation on how the mistake was made remains open.

"It was a clerical error in the transcription of numbers," state epidemiologist Eddy Bresnitz said.

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2006/05/03/two_missing_vials_of_anthrax_are_found/?rss_id=Boston.com+%2F+News

Ok, sure...

[Cooley Hurd]

1. Mislabeled - easy for THAT to happen...

What did the labels say - Vioxx? :rofl:

[LiberalEsto]

3. No, salt and pepper. nt

[hwmnbn]

4. If it was mislabeled........

how exactly did they discover it was anthrax? :dunce:

[0007]

8. Hmmmm there's something to what you're saying.

Perhaps the colored coded system woke someone up.

[Chemical Bill]

11. One said Colbert.... n/t

[Nickster]

2. You know, I just hate it when I leave my Anthrax laying around everywhere.

Those little vials are just so tricky to keep track of. Darn it!

[onehandle]

5. ...in Rove's desk drawer. nt

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

7. obviously...

... someone associated with the GOP/Bushco.

[EVDebs]

6. Dyslexia outbreak at USAMRIID...news at 11 (or later)

More on USAMRIID at their website
www.usamriid.army.mil/

Obviously The Medical Management of Biological Casualties Handbook, issued by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick (Maryland) had to have some 'protocol' violated in order for this to occur ! Were the vials labelled by hand, for example ? Doctor's handwriting is notoriously bad...

[AlamoDemoc]

9. Mislabeled! We didn't see that coming...did we?

[HereSince1628]

10. scrambled accession numbers are a common problem in

large collections of all types. I don't see any exceptional stupidity here, ordinary scientists make plenty of mistakes.

[Maraya1969]

12. It would seem that Anthrax should be no where near other chemicals

to get mixed up with unless I am missing something.

[HereSince1628]

13. I believe they said it was a transposition error...reversing a couple o

numbers in the ascesion code. Depending on which numbers in an ascession number were switched this could put the record at opposite ends of the list from where it was supposed to be.

That sort of thing happens; people make mistakes. It isn't uncommon.

[Igel]

14. Not near chemicals.

In with 19000 other samples. That's a lot of writing or data entry; two numbers wrong for two weeks? I should have so few problems in my records.

Moreover, an important point is that they identified the problem and told us about it; then they fixed the problem, and then told us about it. If they didn't tell us about it, we'd never know.