Pentagon anthrax scare closes military mail buildings,

army lab blamed

WASHINGTON (AP) - Anthrax tests from two Pentagon mailrooms came back negative Tuesday, a day after initial testing indicated the deadly spores might be present, prompting nearly 900 workers to take antibiotics as a precaution.

Responding to what now appear to have been false alarms, officials handed out antibiotics and closed three mail facilities - two that serve the Pentagon and one in Washington that handles mail on its way to the military.

Officials believe the confusion stemmed from a mistake at a U.S. Defence Department laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. Officials there apparently mixed up a sample of anthrax that is kept on hand for comparison purposes with the sample taken from the Pentagon mailroom, a senior administration official said Tuesday.

Later tests proved negative and officials realized their error, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We had some preliminary results that were positive but subsequent additional tests have determined that the sample that we had was in fact negative," said Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defence for health affairs.

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/WarOnTerrorism/2005/03/14/960951-ap.html