Army labs get security training after anthrax case

The Army announced additional security training Tuesday for workers handling some of the world's deadliest germs and toxins, part of its response to an FBI finding that an Army scientist was responsible for deadly 2001 anthrax attacks.

The Army also said Tuesday that a lab closed for security shortcomings in April won't reopen.

The new training to reinforce existing policies was recommended as a first step by a task force reviewing lab security practices after the FBI concluded that Army scientist Bruce Ivins was behind the attacks, said Michael Brady, special assistant to Army Secretary Pete Geren.

The first weeklong refresher course began Monday at the Army's flagship biodefense lab at Fort Detrick in Frederick, where Ivins allegedly obtained and refined the anthrax used in the deadly mailings that killed five people and sickened 17 others.

Lab spokeswoman Caree Vander Linden said the training in security, accounting and accident-reporting rules will be rolled out to four other Army labs over the next few months. She said Army leaders aren't calling for changes in pathogen handling but are reiterating procedures for inventory accounting and documentation.

The program also includes a review of Fort Detrick's automated pathogen inventory management system, which Vander Linden said may serve as a model for other labs that use different systems.

"They're trying to see which would be a good standard to follow," she said.

Tracking inventories of biological agents is trickier than tracking chemical inventories because biological materials can be grown, resulting in a larger supply, or reduced by distillation, Vander Linden said.

She said Fort Detrick's lab, the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, has strengthened its security procedures since the anthrax attacks.

The Army also said Tuesday it won't reopen the Armed Forces Institute of Infectious Diseases, a laboratory at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. Operations there were suspended in April due to concerns about "security, surety management and emergency response," Army spokesman Paul Boyce said.

The lab's activities will be transferred to other locations, Boyce said. He said the lab had 30 to 40 workers, some of whom are authorized to transfer to other labs.

Ivins committed suicide in July as prosecutors prepared to charge him in the anthrax mailings.

Stunned by the FBI's conclusion that Ivins was solely responsible for the attacks, all military service branches launched reviews at their biological labs. Secretaries of the services were to receive reports on the reviews this week.

Workers at 12 military labs - five Army, five Navy and two Air Force - conduct biomedical research to support counterterrorism efforts, research protection for the armed forces and keep track of infectious diseases across the globe. Employees work with a range of dangerous materials such as anthrax and germs that cause Avian flu and encephalitis.

The other Army labs in line for security training are the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Chemical Defense at Aberdeen Proving Ground near Aberdeen, Md.; the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Forest Glen, Md.; the Edgewood Chemical and Biological Center in Edgewood, Md.; and the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, Vander Linden said.

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AP writer Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this story.