The National Institutes of Health said it has uncovered a nearly century-old container of ricin and a handful of other forgotten samples of dangerous pathogens as it combs its laboratories for improperly stored hazardous materials.

The agency began an intensive investigation of all its facilities after a scientist in July found vials of smallpox dating from the 1950s, along with other contagious viruses and bacteria that had been stored and forgotten in one lab on the NIH's campus.

Friday, the NIH said in different facilities, it found small amounts of five improperly stored "select agents," pathogens that must be registered and kept only in certain highly regulated laboratories. All were found in sealed and intact containers, with no evidence that they posed a safety risk to anyone in the labs or surrounding areas, the agency said in a memo to employees. All have been destroyed.

They included a bottle of ricin, a highly poisonous toxin, found in a box with microbes dating from 1914 and thought to be 85 to 100 years old, the memo said. The bottle was labeled as originally containing 5 grams, although NIH doesn't know how much was left.

Ricin has legitimate research uses, the NIH said, but was not studied in this lab.

Also discovered were samples listing pathogens that cause botulism, plague, tularemia and a rare tropical infection called melioidosis.

The NIH does have laboratories that are cleared to use select agents, and those pathogens are regularly inventoried, said NIH director of research services Dr. Alfred Johnson, who oversees agency security and safety issues.

But these samples were in different labs, mostly in historical collections that scientists once routinely kept in the backs of freezers or on dusty shelves but that today require special handling.

"NIH takes this matter very seriously. The finding of these agents highlights the need for constant vigilance in monitoring laboratory materials in compliance with federal regulations on biosafety," the agency memo said.

Separately Friday, the Food and Drug Administration reported it had found still another improperly stored pathogen in one of its laboratories — staphylococcus enterotoxin that can cause food poisoning. The vials were in a locked freezer but not in a lab registered to work with select agents. They were relocated to a registered lab, and later destroyed, FDA said.

tr?H p? ??? se of certain experimental products, including two vaccine candidates. The WHO said that in November, it expects early results from first-stage studies to see if the vaccine appears safe and triggers an immune reaction in people. That would help determine whether to test the shots' effectiveness in health care workers in West Africa.

Small animal and human safety studies cannot guarantee that experimental vaccines really work in an outbreak, Fauci said. That's why he emphasizes public health measures such as isolating the sick, quarantine and, especially for health workers, using personal protection equipment.

"Make sure people do what works," he said.

The booster-shot findings illustrate an added complexity to speeding an experimental vaccine into the field. The initial first phase study results would shed light only on that "priming" vaccine made from the chimp cold virus, Fauci said. The poxvirus booster step would be tested later only if scientists decided the initial vaccine was promising enough.

Still, manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline has said it plans to begin manufacturing up to 10,000 doses of the initial NIH-developed vaccine.

Canadian researchers created a similar Ebola vaccine that works in monkeys. Manufacturer NewLink Genetics of Ames, Iowa, said first-stage safety testing in healthy volunteers is set to begin in a few weeks.

$?r ? ??? the trend, but that is unlikely, Dr. Lisa Newman, a surgery professor and director of the University of Michigan's Breast Care Center said in the editorial.

"A greater concern than financial incentives may be a surgeon's preference based on his/her own experience, regardless of the data," she wrote.

Patients should be given time to absorb a cancer diagnosis, and educated about treatment options, risks and benefits, before being pressed into decisions about irreversible surgery, Newman said.

Amy Curran Baker, an author from suburban New York City who chose a double mastectomy after her 2008 diagnosis, said her doctor presented her with options including lumpectomy. But he ultimately recommended the more invasive treatment because she had family members with breast cancer, and Baker said she doesn't regret her choice.

"I don't think we can discount the importance of 'peace of mind' in a patient's decision-making process," said Baker, who wrote a book about mastectomy recovery. "We all work to heal ourselves psychologically in different ways and for some women this may be one of them."

Her cancer returned two years ago, in scar tissue from the operation on the breast where the disease first appeared, but Baker said she is doing well after chemotherapy and radiation.

The study authors examined data from the California Cancer Registry, part of a national cancer surveillance program. The data lacked information on how many women had genetic breast cancer or strong family histories of the disease.