A second U.S. investigation into the anthrax breach at federal laboratories found major safety lapses, from keys left in supposedly locked refrigerators containing anthrax to the use of disinfectants that had passed their use-by dates, according to a document released by lawmakers on Monday. The findings go beyond details provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in its account of lapses that led to the potential exposure of more than 80 lab workers to live anthrax bacteria in June. A subcommittee of the House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce will hold a hearing on Wednesday about CDC's mishandling of anthrax as well as of a second deadly microbe, avian influenza. In addition to asking CDC director Dr. Thomas Frieden about the anthrax and bird flu incidents, the subcommittee is expected to probe whether those biosafety lapses have implications for federal oversight of "select agents," the most dangerous pathogens, and the high-containment labs that handle them.
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