About 9,600 first responders including paramedics, firefighters, and other students in Federal Emergency Management Agency have been mistakenly exposed to deadly ricin for the last five years.
FEMA, which has been exposing the emergency responders to a deadly toxin since 2011, blames one of its suppliers for the blunder. The ricin powder made of castor beans, which was used in FEMA training classes, is lethal even in small doses.
FEMA Believed It Procures Less Toxic Ricin
FEMA claims that the ricin powder the agency has been ordering is a less toxic one, but Toxin Technology, which supplies the said product, as reported by USA Today, has been wrongly shipping the more toxic ricin for years. However, the toxin suppliers noted that the nine shipments made since 2011 were the more toxic version, and they were clearly labeled with the scientific name "RCA60," indicating they are lethal.
Meanwhile, FEMA administrator W. Craig Fugate has called the Department of Homeland Security Office to investigate on the issue. The agency has also stopped providing training classes using the biological agents, including a less potent strain of anthrax.
No Victims For Toxic Ricin
Fortunately, nobody in FEMA was affected by the toxin, which has no antidote. FEMA spokesperson Alexa Lopez noted that students wore protective gears when they were in training to identify the presence of biological agents, and the workers at the training center who prepared the ricin powder for experiments were also not exposed to the toxin since they were inside special biosafety cabinets.
Experts Fume Over The Issue
Tom Ridge, former Homeland Security secretary who was shocked about the issue, noted that it is outrageous that the agency hasn't verified the product they have been using for a period of five years.
"It's beyond careless and outrageous. It's almost malfeasance," Ridge said.
Meanwhile, Richard Ebright, a biosafety expert from Rutgers University, noted that the ricin issue at FEMA is another incident that shows the "incompetence" of a federal agency in mixing up between biological agents, believing that they were attenuated or killed when in fact they weren't.
Ebright also noted that unless concerned people are held "accountable" for such mistakes, the federal agencies wouldn't understand the seriousness of the issues.
"These kinds of things are continually going to happen until biosafety gets elevated to a major level," said Amesh Adalja, a senior associate from UPMC Center for Health Security.
