Medical Waste Found in Trash Brings No Action - Health: An investigation into the incident was turned over to the Navy, the source of the infectious waste, including AIDS test samples. So far, however, the Navy has remained silent about the event.

Nearly two months after San Diego County officials discovered a large cache of illegally dumped Navy medical waste--including AIDS blood-test samples--behind a Normal Heights video store, none of the agencies involved in investigating the incident revealed the problem to the public or took action against those responsible.

The Times learned Friday that, on July 20, eight bags marked “BIO-HAZARDOUS MATERIAL: CAUTION” were found in a trash bin behind Blockbuster Video in the 3500 block of El Cajon Boulevard. The translucent, 18-by-24-inch bags contained several hundred used syringes, bloody bandages, bacteria cultures, and blood samples used for AIDS and venereal disease tests.

“We had the case under investigation,” said Linda Miller, spokeswoman for the San Diego County district attorney’s office and a member of the county’s Hazardous Waste Task Force. “At the end of the investigation, we turned it over to the Navy, expecting them to handle it. The Navy said they were going to handle it. I don’t know what they’ve done--they haven’t made any releases to the public.”

Miller said the district attorney, working with Naval Investigative Service agents, determined that a Navy hospital corpsman put the eight bags of waste into the trunk of his car when he found himself locked out of a medical waste disposal shed. His wife unwittingly tossed them into the trash bin of the video store where she worked.

Miller said the results of the investigation were turned over to the Navy last month.

But the “appropriate (Navy) command” has not yet received the NIS report, said Navy spokesman Chief Petty Officer Martin Wicklund. “When it is reviewed by the command, the Navy will take appropriate administrative and judicial actions as necessary.”

Wicklund declined further comment. NIS officials also declined comment.

A Navy official, who requested anonymity, said supervising officers will decide next week how to handle this case. The Navy officials met several times last month as well as this week with the district attorney’s office and NIS officials, sources said.

The cache of medical waste alarmed county health officials because of the amount and the infectiousness of the material.

Miller said, “There were potentially infectious items in these bags. We know people go through Dumpsters, especially in that area. We are lucky this didn’t create a serious health problem.”

The find was one of the biggest caches of medical waste found in San Diego in years, said Gary Stephanie, director of the county’s Environmental Health Services.

“This is major,” Stephanie said. “If the Navy has all these procedures and policies, and if they are not going to be followed, it’s real serious. . . . If this was a doctor’s office, we would have asked the district attorney’s office to file charges.”

Miller said investigators determined that, in July, working at the end of his shift, hospital corpsman Wade Bliss was unable to open the locked disposal shed used for hazardous medical waste. Bliss loaded the eight bags into his car trunk and left them there. His wife Maria, who works at the Blockbuster Video, saw the bags and dumped them into the trash bin at her job.

Store manager Steve King recalls finding the bags and being horrified when he saw the red and black label: “BIO-HAZARDOUS MATERIAL: CAUTION.” King believed that they might have contained radioactive material and immediately called the Health Department.

“It was really nasty stuff,” King said. “I may walk down the beach and see medical waste, but I don’t figure I am going to see it in a trash can.”

Bliss, who was unavailable for comment, has not been reprimanded for the incident, sources said. Bliss, 24, is attached to the submarine destroyer tender Dixon, which would have handled the medical waste not only for itself but for several submarines that its crew was repairing.

Several waves of hazardous medical waste have washed ashore in the past year. In most cases, officials have been unable to prove whether the waste was dumped from Navy ships or, indeed, where it came from.

In May, three atropine injectors traced to a military depot washed ashore. Later, syringes, prescription drug vials and intravenous tubing, as well as C rations, dotted the shores from Carlsbad to Coronado.

But, in this recent case, officials were able to figure out what happened.

Because Bliss’ wife Maria, 21, did not realize the seriousness of her actions, the district attorney’s office decided not to file charges against her, Miller said.

“I had the impression this was something which, if it occurred several years ago, no one would have raised an eyebrow--but several years ago, we didn’t have the requirements for medical waste that we have now,” said Cmdr. Steve Epstein, a staff judge advocate for the 32nd Street Naval Base who had attended a meeting in August about the incident. “We are living in a new age now where we have to take care of things, and apparently that was not done.”

Store manager King, meanwhile, has begun padlocking his trash bin.