Vials

Police are trying to determine if a substance passed among four first-graders in a city school Friday was cocaine.One of the youngsters at Charles Carroll of Carrollton Elementary School brought nine vials of a powdery white substance to school and shared the contents of two of the vials with three classmates while they worked on a group project Friday afternoon.Two of the vials were empty when their teacher, Dorothy Polk-Bostic, took them away from the children, said Robyn Washington, city schools' spokeswoman.

Health officials Saturday confirmed a 15th fungal meningitis case in Maryland as a multi-state outbreak of the disease linked to a steroid injection continued to spread. Meningitis cases have reached 198 in 13 states. One person in Maryland has died, while 15 have died nationwide. The contaminated steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, was produced and distributed by the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass. Vials were sent to 76 clinics in 23 states, including seven in Maryland.

Baltimore County police have charged a 12-year-old Franklin Middle School pupil with possession of an explosive/incendiary device after school officials found vials of household chemicals in his locker Tuesday. Cpl. Vickie Warehime, a police spokeswoman, said the seventh-grader was arrested on the felony charge late Tuesday. Police are withholding his name because he is charged as a juvenile. The chemicals are being analyzed, but the boy told police the vials contained a mixture of an anti-static spray and hydrogen peroxide, Warehime said.

Anne Arundel County residents can get a free "vial of life" kit, a container designed to hold emergency medical and contact information, starting Friday at county fire stations. Fire Chief John Robert Ray said residents should complete the form in the 3-inch "lifesaving information for emergency" vial and place the vial in the refrigerator, which protects it from fire. A refrigerator sticker will alert emergency workers that there is a vial inside. The vial can be especially useful for people who are elderly, disabled or live alone, he said.

In a case that has drawn protests from leading scientists, a prominent plague researcher who touched off a brief bioterrorism scare last year when he reported germ vials missing was sentenced yesterday to two years in prison by a federal judge in Lubbock, Texas. Dr. Thomas C. Butler, 62, was acquitted in a three-week trial of lying to the FBI about the missing vials and of most charges alleging that he mishandled plague samples. But he was convicted of 47 criminal counts, including theft, embezzlement and fraud in connection with consulting contracts.

Radio personality Alfred Jerome Stewart was shot and killed in a drug-infested area of East Baltimore, and police say he died with two vials of suspected crack cocaine in his hand.Mr. Stewart, a morning drive-time disc jockey for gospel radio station WWIN-AM, was shot several times in the back at 11:25 p.m. Wednesday at the corner of Cliftview Avenue and Harford )) Road.Mr. Stewart apparently parked in his Mercedes-Benz in front of a carryout restaurant shortly before he was shot. Police found him lying beside the car, its engine still running.

A 12-year-old boy who was allegedly carrying 23 vials of cocaine is the third pre-teen to be arrested by city police in the past two weeks on drug offenses.The youth, a sixth-grade student whose name was not released, was arrested Sunday by Eastern District police officers in the 1900 block of E. Lanvale St.The boy's arrest came two days after Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke directed police to focus on city playgrounds, where a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old were arrested in separate incidents on recent days.

The Army has suspended an environmental cleanup at Fort Detrick after workers discovered 18 vials containing potentially infectious bacteria that may have been left over from biological weapons research carried out decades ago. The three kinds of bacteria pose no threat to residents of Frederick, because the entire excavation site is covered with a containment structure and exhaust air is passed through high-efficiency filters, said Fort Detrick spokesman...

Chesapeake Biological Laboratories Inc. cut the ribbon yesterday on a $16 million plant where it will put smallpox vaccine into vials, the final step in a manufacturing process designed to stockpile enough of the vaccine to protect every U.S. civilian. The southwest Baltimore contract manufacturer, a subsidiary of Winnipeg, Manitoba-based Cangene Corp., built the 12,000-square-foot plant under a shroud of secrecy in just three months - years faster than usual for biotechnology plant construction.

A former technician at Francis Scott Key Medical Center has been charged with stealing large quantities of morphineDaniel Chodnicki, 30, of the first block of Duntore Place in Fullerton, was indicted by the Baltimore grand jury last week on 235 counts of possession with intent to distribute morphine and Fentanyl, powerful analgesics, and diazepam (Valium), a tranquilizer. He also was charged with felony theft in what city prosecutors called the largest case of its kind in recent memory."Both the size and the scope are alarming," said State's Attorney Stuart O. Simms.

The biodefense lab at Fort Detrick in Frederick began a thorough search of its freezers yesterday to ensure that it has an accurate inventory of the deadly bacteria, viruses and toxins accumulated there over a period of 40 years, Defense Department officials said. Col. John P. Skvorak, commander of the U.S. Army Medical Institute of Infectious Diseases, ordered a "stand-down," or pause in ordinary operations, and a complete inventory last week after 20 vials of "biological select agents and toxin" (BSAT)

A man who was shot by Baltimore police officers during a traffic stop two years ago was sentenced yesterday to more than eight years in prison after pleading guilty to drug trafficking, according to the Maryland U.S. attorney's office. Cornell Slater, 22, admitted in court to selling cocaine, prosecutors said. He qualified for a longer sentence because he has been convicted twice before in state court of offenses that include crimes of violence and drugs. Baltimore police said officers stopped Slater's car Oct. 12, 2006, at Cottage and Violet avenues in Northwest Baltimore for a traffic infraction.

A Catonsville man was sentenced to six months' home detention and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service for distributing vials and tablets of anabolic steroids over the Internet, according to the U.S. attorney's office in Baltimore. Michael Schlanger, 48, a former personal trainer for Bally's Total Fitness in Glen Burnie, was arrested last year after federal authorities said they intercepted a package of steroids at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Prosecutors said Schlanger imported the drugs from foreign sources and had them sent to rented mailboxes reserved in phony names.

A Catonsville man pleaded guilty yesterday in U.S. District Court to distributing vials and tablets of anabolic steroids over the Internet by importing the drugs from foreign sources and sending them to rented mailboxes reserved in false names, federal prosecutors said. Michael Schlanger, 48, a former personal trainer for Bally's Total Fitness in Glen Burnie, could receive a maximum five years in prison and three years of supervised probation when he is sentenced Sept. 7, prosecutors said.

In more than two decades with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Carl Kotowski had never seen anything like it. At the conclusion of a nine-month heroin task force investigation that led to more than 100 federal agents and Baltimore police officers fanning out yesterday morning and arresting 11 people, authorities made a most unusual find: a woman's purse made entirely of $100 bills. The illegal drug organization was "very unique in some of its concealment," Kotowski, the assistant special agent in charge of the DEA's Baltimore office, said of the suspects' hollowed-out cans of bathroom cleanser and soda cans with secret compartments to store drugs.

Three workers at Aberdeen Proving Ground were taken for medical observation yesterday after a laboratory vial containing dilute mustard agent broke, officials said. The Harford County military base's emergency personnel responded to an accident in a laboratory at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center at 11:30 a.m. after a worker handling a small quantity of the blister agent was exposed, said George Mercer, a spokesman for APG. The worker was decontaminated and sent to an on-post medical clinic for observation, Mercer said.

Numerous complaints about drug activity in an East Baltimore neighborhood led to the arrest last night of three suspects -- ages 13, 14 and 16 -- in the 1800 block of Regester Street.Seized at the scene were $300 in cash and 37 vials of powdered cocaine -- nine of them hidden in a tennis ball and the rest in a window of a vacant house, police said.In a yard, officers found 43 vials believed to contain cocaine residue.Eastern District officers charged the youths with possession of cocaine and with the intent and conspiracy to distribute it, andreleased them to the custody of their parents.

Baltimore narcotics agents yesterday seized about 1 million capsules, vials and plastic bags -- all suspected drug-packaging materials -- at a downtown shop and warehouse where the items were allegedly sold over the counter.Police said the items were being sold at the Sonja Wholesale at 7 N. Eutaw St. They called the business a major supplier of drug equipment.Also seized were numerous chemical cutting agents typically associated with drugs, and $1,600 in cash.Police said they would seek indictments charging more than one dozen people in the on-going investigation, including the owner of the business, Joseph Yi, 33. Mr. Yi's mother, who was working in the warehouse when police raided it at 4 p.m., said he was in Korea.

Free Vials of Life to be given out July 4 The Kiwanis Club of Columbia has volunteered to distribute 2,000 free Vials of Life at its Fourth of July celebration at the Lakefront in Columbia. Vials of Life are small containers designed to hold personal emergency medical information; they are to be kept on the top shelf of the refrigerator for retrieval by ambulance paramedics or others in the event of an emergency, when the patient is not able to communicate. Verizon Telecom Pioneers, an industry-related volunteer organization, provides the Vials of Life and an emergency medical information sheet.