The University of California has been fined $450,000 for mishandling an anthrax shipment from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Los Angeles Times reported today. During the shipment, vials containing the anthrax microbe leaked. It was not immediately clear if anyone had fallen ill as a result of the leak.

The fine was the largest of 11 imposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s inspector general since 2003 for violations of federal rules governing select agents — microbes that are federally regulated because of their potential use as weapons.

The only other university fined was the University of South Carolina, which agreed to pay $50,000 last year for failing to maintain training and inspection records and for having inadequate security, biosafety, and incident-response plans.

Word of the California fine came as Congress was conducting a hearing on the safety of the nation’s biodefense laboratories. At that hearing, representatives of the Government Accountability Office said that federal oversight of the labs has been lax. —Kelly Field