Nearly 10,000 first responders have mistakenly been exposed to the deadly toxin ricin over the last five years at a federal terrorism training center.
According to USA Today, the Federal Emergency Management Agency's Center for Domestic Preparedness was under the impression it was using a less-potent form of ricin for students to train with. That assumption was wrong, and more than 9,600 people were exposed to the substance.
The training center blames the vendor who supplied the ricin for the mixup, although that vendor told USA Today the ricin shipments were labeled as the deadly form of ricin.
Students at the facility wear biohazard suits while working with the substances, which includes anthrax. The ironic blunder is tied to nine shipments sent to the Anniston, Ala. center since 2011, USA Today reports.
Tom Ridge, a former secretary of homeland security, told USA Today, "It's beyond careless and outrageous. It's almost malfeasance."
A FEMA spokeswoman told USA Today no one was sickened from the ricin.
The website chronicles other instances of mishandling of deadly substances used for research or training purposes, including live anthrax samples that were sent to labs across the world for more than 10 years. The samples were supposed to be dead anthrax.
Another report in 2015 said the U.S. military may have mishandled organisms that cause the plague and other deadly diseases.
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