It’s unclear why training center staff didn’t recognize for years that they were working with a far more dangerous substance.

But officials from Toxin Technology, the Florida company that sent nine shipments to the center since 2011, told USA TODAY that its ricin products were all accurately labeled as “RCA60” – a scientific name for the whole ricin toxin, which can be deadly. The training center says it submitted order forms asking for a type of ricin extract that is unlikely to cause serious harm. The poison, made from castor beans, is capable of killing at small doses. The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Center for Domestic Preparedness blames an outside laboratory for a series of shipping errors since 2011 that resulted in the first-responder training center using in its classes a potentially lethal form of ricin powder. Watch Video: Trainees at federal facility exposed to deadly ricinīecause of yet another mix-up with bioterror pathogens, a federal terrorism response training center in Alabama says it mistakenly exposed more than 9,600 firefighters, paramedics and other students to a deadly toxin over the past five years.

Ricin poisoning antidote