EFL
At least six workers developing an anthrax vaccine at a hospital research lab in Oakland may have faced accidental exposure to the deadly bacterium because of a shipping mistake, officials reported Thursday. Officials with the Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute said none of the researchers has shown symptoms of infection since the first potential exposure perhaps two weeks ago, but each is being treated with a precautionary 60-day regimen of antibiotics. The researchers believed they were working with syringes full of a dead version of anthrax, hospital spokeswoman Bev Mikalonis said. Instead, they were shipped live anthrax by a lab of the Southern Research Institute in Frederick, Md., Mikalonis said. |