A South Korean civic group calls for investigation into all anthrax shipments and tests the US military has done

Following the accidental shipment of live anthrax samples to the US air force base at Osan, the US military informed the South Korean government that it would stop its anthrax testing for the time being, sources say. Nevertheless, there are still calls for the US and South Korea to take institutional measures such as revising SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement).

“Recently, the US military told the South Korean government that it is planning to discontinue shipments of and experiments on anthrax until it can determine the cause of the shipment of live anthrax and devise measures for preventing its reoccurrence,” a South Korean government source told the Hankyoreh on July 15. “This will be included in the investigation findings that will be publically announced in the US sometime this weekend or next week.”

It also appears that the US military will have to shut down the JUPITR Program (Joint USFK Portal and Integrated Threat Recognition) that it has been operating inside South Korea. The US Army’s Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense has been running this program with US forces in South Korea as part of its global strategy for chemical, biological, and radiological weapons and in order to counter the threat of North Korea’s chemical and biological weapons.

The US military is reportedly assessing the situation, paying heed to the possibility that an unexpected mutation may have occurred while the anthrax bacteria was being deactivated before shipment.

“Generally, anthrax is deactivated before shipping by subjecting it to radiation. The US military is saying that some of the anthrax that was shipped in April was still live even after being radiated. The US suspects that the anthrax may have developed resistance to radiation,” the source added.

Anthrax, which takes the form of spores, is infamous for being able to survive for long periods of time in hostile environments. The US said that about 300 or anthrax spores per 100 million remained alive after radiation, an amount that would not have been fatal to humans.

It is impossible to confirm whether the anthrax sample that was shipped to the Osan base in April was actually live. “As soon as the Pentagon ordered us to dispose of the sample, we did so without checking whether it was live,” the US military said.

The joint working-level task force composed of representatives from government agencies in the two countries and experts from the private sector began its work on July 11, a month and a half after the incident occurred, but it is already running into limitations in establishing the basic facts.

The anthrax incident was an official agenda item in the meeting of the SOFA Joint Committee that took place at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on July 15. During the meeting, Lt. Gen. Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy, assistant commander of US forces in South Korea, expressed his regret and promised to continue to work with South Korea to determine the facts and to devise measures to prevent a reoccurrence.

“The US and South Korea are planning to use the joint working-level task force to investigate a variety of pressing issues,” a senior South Korean government official said.

Just before the joint committee convened on Wednesday, the Civic Society Countermeasures Committee for Denouncing the Illegal Shipment of and Experiments on Anthrax held a press conference in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“The South Korean government said that the investigation would be limited to the accidental shipment of live anthrax that occurred at the end of May. But since it has been confirmed that the US has been doing tests in the JUPITR program since 2013, the investigation should be expanded to all of the anthrax shipments and tests that the US military has done,” the activists said.

　

By Kim Oi-hyun and Kim Ji-hoon, staff reporters

　

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