Just hours after members of Congress grilled the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about his agency’s mistakes with anthrax and bird flu, another federal health agency provided an update on its mistakes with vials of deadly smallpox virus.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration revealed that more than 300 other sealed vials containing biological materials such as dengue, influzena, Q fever, ricksettsia and other possible unknown viruses were found alongside the six forgotten smallpox vials in the storage room on the National Institutes of Health campus.
The FDA commissioner has asked for a sweep of all cold storage facilities under FDA jurisdiction, said Karen Midthun, director of FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.
“The fact that these materials were not discovered until now is unacceptable,” Midthun said. “We take this matter very seriously and we’re working to make sure it won’t happen again.”
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