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Authorities on Thursday arrested a pharmacist in suburban Milwaukee on suspicion of deliberately ruining hundreds of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by removing it from the refrigerator for two nights.
The Grafton Police Department said the former pharmacist Advocate Aurora Health was arrested on suspicion of reckless endangerment, tampering with a prescription drug and criminal damage to property. The department said in a press release that he was in prison. Police did not identify the pharmacist, saying he had not yet been formally charged.
His mobile remains unclear. Police said detectives believed he knew the spoiled doses would be useless and people who received them would mistakenly think they had been vaccinated when they had not.
On December 24, Aurora Health Care lawyer medical group chief Jeff Bahr told reporters on a Thursday afternoon teleconference that the pharmacist had deliberately removed 57 vials containing hundreds of doses of Moderna- National Institutes of Health refrigeration at a Grafton medical center overnight on December 24. -25, returned them, then left them aside again on the night of December 25-26. The vials contained enough doses to inoculate 570 people.
Police in Grafton, about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, said in a statement that the Department, the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration were “actively” investigating the case. Police said they were made aware of the alleged tampering on Wednesday evening.
A pharmacy technician discovered the vials outside the refrigerator on Saturday morning. Bahr said the pharmacist initially said he removed the vaccine to access other items in the refrigerator and failed to inadvertently replace it.
The Moderna vaccine is still viable for 12 hours outside of refrigeration, so workers used the vaccine to inoculate 57 people before throwing away the rest. Police said the rejected doses were worth between $ 8,000 and $ 11,000.
Bahr said health system officials were more wary of the pharmacist when reviewing the incident. After several interviews, the pharmacist admitted on Wednesday that he had deliberately withdrawn the vaccine and left it aside overnight from December 24 to 25, put it back in the refrigerator at one point, and then had it again. withdrawn overnight from December 25 to 26.
Bahr said that means the doses people received on Saturday are virtually useless. Moderna told Aurora that there are no security issues, but the system is watching them closely, he said.
Bahr declined to comment on the pharmacist’s motives.
Aurora said she fired the employee and referred the case to authorities. The statement said nothing about a possible reason for the deterioration.
“We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic. We are more than disappointed that this person’s actions are causing a delay of more than 500 people receiving their vaccine, ”the statement said.
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