There is No Reason To Panic

The frozen remains of mice injected with the plague are missing from a University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey facility in Newark.

"UMDNJ has no reason to believe that this situation poses a risk to the safety or health of UMDNJ staff or the community at large," the university said in its prepared statement.

After all, it was almost certainly incompetence, not terrorism, or anything.

In September 2005, the same lab discovered three live mice infected with plague missing from multiple cages. Officials then said the animals had likely died.

In the December incident, which the FBI investigated, it has been decided that the bag containing the two missing mice -- infected with the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which causes bubonic and other forms of plague -- was frozen to another bag and both bags were sterilized and incinerated simultaneously.

"I'm confident we run a safe and secure facility. We run a first-rate operation, and we will be out of business fast if people don't believe we have credibility," David Perlin, the director of the Public Health Research Institute, said. "We have very strict controls. Safety. Security. Everything. But you're always running the risk of even a very small minor incident, which is what this is."