By Paulo Winterstein

Though clandestine methamphetamine and other drug labs continue to pose serious risks to first responders, they are at least a fairly well-known hazard. Training and procedures for dealing with them have had years to mature, which mitigates the hazards that law enforcement, fire and EMS personnel face.

But after Sen. Tom Daschle was mailed a letter containing anthrax spores in 2001, the public — and responders — were reminded that clandestine labs weren't just producing drugs. Perhaps in basements or abandoned barns, relatively low-tech operations could be producing biological weapons of potential mass destruction.

A federal resource 
Five years earlier, in 1996, the FBI had established the Hazardous Materials Response Unit to address what it saw as a lack of technical expertise in dealing with hazmat situations. The unit is now represented by wmd coordinators stationed at 56 FBI field offices across the country. These wmd coordinators act as liaisons between specialized teams at the federal level and authorities at the state and local level to facilitate investigations into possible bioterrorism threats.

Senior Hazardous Materials Officer Steven Patrick, who heads up the operational side of the hmru, emphasizes that his organization is specifically trained to deal with potential biological and chemical weapons, and that if emergency responders have the slightest suspicion that they've run across a clandestine bioterrorism lab, they should call in the local FBI wmd coordinator.

"First responders [should be] trained to recognize a clandestine drug lab," Patrick says. "If it's not a clandestine drug lab, then it probably exceeds their capability to manage that situation, and it needs to fall to specialized teams within law enforcement."

Among those specialized teams are 27 field squads composed of hazmat experts under the supervision of Dr. Douglas Anders, a microbiologist and the hmru's senior scientist.

These squads are trained in dealing with hazardous materials, which may include not only potentially lethal toxins but also dangerous explosives, as well as following FBI forensic procedure, which is priceless in ensuring a sound investigation and successful prosecution.

Anders seconds Patrick's warning that first responders should contact a wmd coordinator if they find a lab that doesn't fit the mold of a drug lab.

"You can start getting into details of specific organisms and what to look for there,"Anders says, referring to tell-tale signs that first responders should look for. "I don't think people really want to get that level of detail … because if you tell them to look for this size widget, and they're always thinking ‘I've got to look for this size widget,' then they miss the big picture."

Warning signs
That said, bioweapon labs can often look like drug labs, so Anders offers a few salient details that, taken as a whole, should tip off local authorities that they're dealing not with a drug lab, but with something potentially even more dangerous.

Ricin is by far the most common biological agent produced in clandestine labs, according to the FBI, due in part to how easy it is to acquire materials. The lethal toxin is extracted from castor beans, using a process that does not require very complex equipment.

A standard process for producing ricin was patented in the middle of the 20th century, and most laboratories follow this procedure, which leads to a regular set of equipment. This includes hammers, coffee grinders or mortars-and-pestles to crush the beans and remove the husk, sometimes with the aid of lye to soften the bean.

The castor beans, usually brown and black, are sometimes mistaken for pinto beans because of the similar color and stripe pattern.

Funnels and filters also are commonly used to drain the desired ricin solution once the bean mash is mixed with an organic solvent like acetone.

But as Anders points out, "These are all common household items that you can find, so nothing is necessarily going to tip you off so that if you see a pair of pliers or you see a coffee grinder in somebody's house you're going to say, ‘Aha! This person might be working with ricin.'

"That may well be, but it's a totality of the circumstances. You have to have that, you have to have the seeds, you have to have other chemicals that are present."
Though the equipment will usually be found all together, on occasion the various tools and chemicals may be spread out over the property.

"Generally, within the United States, we see on average about three ricin labs a year," Patrick says. "From a biological laboratory aspect, three a year is actually frequent. If someone is going to come upon a ‘wmd biolab,' chances are they'll probably see this as opposed to some other type."

Another common toxin is botulinin. Manufacture of the toxin can sometimes be confused with the production of hallucinogenic mushrooms, since the two often are grown in mason jars. But whereas the hallucinogenic mold is left open to the air, Anders explains that botulinin can't survive in the presence of atmospheric oxygen and so requires a sealed container.

Even before letters containing anthrax spores were sent to the U.S. Capitol in 2001, anthrax was considered a likely candidate for bioterrorism. Anders and Patrick note, however, that anthrax production is hardly ever successful. In most cases the scare doesn't go beyond a threat, with few actual labs ever found.

The presumed reason is that production of anthrax is more complicated, requiring the use of incubators or some other form of temperature control. Another sign of possible anthrax manufacture is Petri dishes with visible growth or cloudy liquid solutions.

Some powder may be found, but it's difficult to visually distinguish from flour or other powders.

Viruses are another possibility, but these require even more-specialized equipment such as incubators, air cylinders and gases, as well as protective equipment such as air filters or gas masks for the producer of the virus.

One potential distinguishing mark of a clandestine bio­weapons lab is the presence of a weaponizing agent, the form by which the toxin will be spread. This can include hypodermic needles, spray bottles to aerosolize the toxin or food into which the toxin will be introduced. On occasion, the solvent dimethyl sulfoxide will be found, since it penetrates the skin easily and might be able to carry toxins across the skin barrier.

Safety first
Anders cautions against manipulating suspicious materials in any way, not only because clandestine laboratories (like drug labs) are often booby-trapped, but also because of the possibility that the laboratory is in fact used to make explosives. "The folks in the explosives unit probably see more explosives laboratories than we do bio- and wmd-related chemical labs combined."
Patrick agrees, explaining that though the HMRU investigates at least one threat a day, on average they find only three or four sites a year to be actual bio laboratories.

Though relatively rare, these sites are extremely dangerous, because inappropriately handling microbiological agents can have far-reaching consequences.

"Sometimes a local agency may not be aware that the U.S. government possesses a capability specifically designed to manage these situations, so they may believe that it is their responsibility to just go in and bag this material up and take it in for evidence," Patrick says.

"And the problem is when they do that, they are putting themselves at risk from a health and safety standpoint. They're potentially spreading a deadly contaminant to their evidence locker in their police department, potentially exposing multiple people."

Patrick also stresses the importance of protecting the integrity of the evidence at these laboratory sites. "With some of the recipes, there are materials that are very caustic that are used. If there's cross-contamination of materials, then it can destroy not only the traditional forensic evidence that we're trying to seize, but it might also destroy the biological material itself."

If adhered to, OSHA's hazmat regulations (29 cfr 1910.120), as well as the National Fire Protection Association's NFPA 472: Standard for Professional Competence of Responders to Hazardous Materials Incidents, should reduce the chance of someone being injured or spreading a toxin or bio­agent, Patrick says.

And that means that once the emergency functions are taken care of, anyone who isn't specifically trained to deal with hazardous materials should evacuate.

"Once the immediate protection of life and protection of the property and the environment have been addressed, yes [first responders] still have a problem in their communities, but it's not a problem as long as it's contained. At that point they should take no further action, just like they would do at some other crime scene. Just rope it off and wait for the appropriate investigative authorities to come into play."

About the author
Paulo Winterstein is a recent graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.