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we begin with that developing story tonight the Pentagon acknowledging a major mistake sending live anthrax from a facility in Utah they sent samples to nine states one even sent overseas to South Korea they thought that the samples the spores were dead but tonight one of those samples was in fact live anthrax and now the urgent effort to test the others the Pentagon saying there is no risk to the general public dr. Besser is standing by but we begin with ABC senior justice correspondent Pierre Thomas tonight state health departments are racing to make sure no one has been contaminated by anthrax accidentally shipped from a military weapons facility and the Centers for Disease Control is on the ground in Utah working to find out how and why the Pentagon ship commercially some live anthrax spores from a facility in Utah to labs and nine states and another in South Korea so far health officials say the risk for exposure to the deadly biological agent is low but health and research officials have fanned out to all those labs to see how the material was handled and if personnel were exposed the Defense Department normally ships live anthrax at high levels of bio security but in this case they were shipped at a lower level because the spores were thought to be dead anthrax is considered a potential biological weapon as a nation saw on a nightmare that unfolded soon after the 911 attacks when five people were killed and 17 were infected and Pierre Thomas with us live now from Washington and Pierre no signs of any illness from this tonight David no signs of illness at the labs in those nine states but the scientists who work with the anthrax are being offered antibiotics as a precaution all right ABC's Pierre Thomas leading us off tonight Pierre thank you and ABC's chief medical editor dr. Richard Besser is here rich used to run the CDC's anthrax unit and you were telling me earlier that when anthrax is inhaled you have an eighty-five percent fatality rate that's right you know this is a big deal and not because anyone has gotten sick but the potential was there you're allowed to ship anthrax through commercial means like this but when you do the precautions are very different if one of these packages had burst open in transit it could have been deadly and they thought that these spores were dead but we're not exactly they're going to be trying to figure out now how did it and that live spores were shipped out all right rich and you'll stay on this thanks so much you