According to a friend who is employed at the Center for Domestic Preparedness, which is located on the former Fort McClellan, all first responders who attend training there do so utilizing multiple live agents (GB, VX, ricin, etc) in the COBRA (Chemical, Ordnance, Biological and Radiological) training facility. Students who trained with the agent were in full Level C personal protective equipment at all times when training with the agent. Additionally, operations were performed using appropriate safety equipment, and inside a Type II biosafety cabinet that provides engineering control of respiratory exposures.
“According to a friend who is employed at the Center for Domestic Preparedness, which is located on the former Fort McClellan, all first responders who attend training there do so utilizing multiple live agents (GB, VX, ricin, etc) in the COBRA (Chemical, Ordnance, Biological and Radiological) training facility. Students who trained with the agent were in full Level C personal protective equipment at all times when training with the agent. Additionally, operations were performed using appropriate safety equipment, and inside a Type II biosafety cabinet that provides engineering control of respiratory exposures.”
Testing multiple select agents simultaneously is somewhat overkill since to my knowledge there have been no attacks using more than one threat agent. Doesnt mean it wont happen in the future though. That training sounds very hardcore but testing GB and VX in a BSL II cabinet is cheating :-).