According to the Department of National Defence and the Public Health Agency of Canada, three laboratory test kits that could have contained live anthrax and were sent from the United States to Canada were not used for years.

According to the department, the vials were located at the Suffield facility and were also kept in an appropriate level of control for anthrax. This research facility is known as the Defence Research and Development Suffield Research Centre.

National Defence said in an email, "Our records indicate that the 2007 samples in question have not been accessed in the last five years and there have been no safety issues associated with this sample at the Suffield Research Centre".

The bacterium Bacillus anthracis is known as anthrax. The bacteria are found in soil and normally infect animals like cows, sheep and bison.

The bacteria rarely attack humans; however, it could prove to be dangerous since the way through which the anthrax spores enter an infected person's body play a role in fatal effects; inhaled anthrax is extremely fatal but cutaneous anthrax, which is infection of the skin, is usually not that dangerous, when treated properly.

The defective test kits are related to rapidly increasing problem for the US Department of Defence.

It was discovered that unmarked live samples of anthrax were sent out by the Dugway Lab to many laboratories. An investigation that was led by the Pentagon and the US Centers for Disease Control found that from the beginning of detection, the kits were received by more labs than what was thought earlier.