RALEIGH-The State of North Carolina today announced it is changing its anthrax field testing policy and directing its six Hazardous Materials Regional Response Teams (RRT) to no longer conduct field tests of suspicious substances. In the future, the teams will collect the substance, and local authorities will decide whether to send it to the State Health Lab in Raleigh for testing. Local authorities are advised to continue taking precautionary measures they deem necessary until the lab test results are available.

"Our state emergency response experts have determined that because the preliminary results from the field test kits were not conclusive for anthrax - but only for non-specific bacteria - that it was creating more confusion than necessary," said Bryan E. Beatty, secretary of the N.C. Department of Crime Control & Public Safety (CC&PS). "We made the decision in consultation with state public health officials, who agreed that the best thing to do is to conduct the full laboratory tests on those items that law enforcement deem to be suspicious."

The only definitive test for the presence of anthrax is the microbiological exam of bacterial growth and subsequent biochemical tests-which take two to three days. At this time, these tests can only be conducted in state and federal public health laboratories.

"Until we have new technology, growing a culture in a laboratory is the only way to conclusively determine if a substance is anthrax; therefore, if local authorities have concerns then the substance should be sent to the State Public Health Lab," said interim State Health Director, Leah Devlin.

Until now, local responders and RRTs have used a preliminary field test, called a SMART Ticket, to determine if a bacteria is present. There is no field test that can immediately confirm the presence of anthrax bacteria. The SMART Ticket is used by highly trained emergency responders only to determine that further testing may be needed.

"Although we have only had two false positive results from the SMART Ticket, having a preliminary result and then a final result was creating confusion," said Eric Tolbert, director of the Division of Emergency Management, a division of CC&PS. "We feel we can rely on the experience of state and local emergency responders to determine if further testing is necessary and to take proper precautions until final test results are available."

To date, more than 250 samples have been sent to the State Health Lab for testing and none have tested positive for anthrax bacteria. Most of those samples were NOT field tested by the SMART Ticket test kits.