Containers filled with several types of potentially deadly substances, including a nearly 100-year-old vial of the toxin ricin and samples of the pathogens that cause botulism and the plague , have reportedly been discovered at US National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration laboratories. The substances were discovered as part of a search launched in response to the accidental discovery of smallpox at an NIH facility in Bethesda, Maryland earlier this summer, according to BBC News .