CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SAN DIEGO : Medical Waste Tied to Defense Depot

Some of the medical equipment that washed up along a 12-mile stretch of San Diego County shoreline was distributed by a Department of Defense supply depot in Tracy in Central California, Navy officials said. But it is unclear which military branch may have generated the waste and who dumped it. The Tracy depot is the same facility identified as the source of medical debris that washed up on beaches in Orange and San Diego counties in 1988. The waste that recently drifted ashore included three injectors of atropine, used as an antidote to nerve gas and considered a serious public hazard. Also found were 100 vials of penicillin and several hundred strips of anti-malaria pills. Health officials warned beach-goers about the injectors, which immediately inject atropine when placed against the skin. The drug elevates the heart rate and can induce delirium.