[ad_1]
By Steve Gorman and Rebecca Spalding
(Reuters) – A pharmacist at a Wisconsin hospital was arrested Thursday for sabotaging more than 500 doses of the coronavirus vaccine by deliberately removing them from the refrigeration to spoil them, law enforcement and medical officials said.
The pharmacist, an employee of Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wis., When 57 vials of vaccine were found left out of the cold room earlier this week, has since been fired but has not been publicly identified , officials said.
Each vial contains 10 doses. Almost 60 of the doses in question were given before hospital officials determined that the drug had not been refrigerated long enough to render the vaccine ineffective. The remaining 500 doses were then discarded.
Moderna Inc, manufacturer of the vaccine, assured the hospital that receiving an injection of one of the doses taken out of the refrigeration posed no safety concerns other than leaving the recipient unprotected against COVID infection, the Dr Jeff Bahr, Aurora Health Care Medical Group Chairman.
Neither Aurora Health nor law enforcement offered a possible motive for the sabotage.
Those who received the ineffective doses have been notified and should be revaccinated. This episode means that vaccination will be delayed for 570 people who should have received their first injection of the two-dose vaccine.
Speaking at an online news briefing Thursday, Bahr said there was no evidence the pharmacist tampered with the vaccines in any way, other than removing them from the refrigeration, or that other doses were disturbed.
Grafton Police said in a statement the pharmacist “knew that the spoiled vaccinations would be unnecessary and that people who had received the vaccinations would think they had been vaccinated against the virus when in fact they were not. “.
The incident comes amid public opinion surveys showing widespread skepticism about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, which received emergency use clearance from federal regulators just 11 months after the onset virus in the United States.
Reluctance to be vaccinated has even been expressed by some health workers who are among those designated as the first to receive them.
When asked for the first time after the stray vials were discovered on December 26, the pharmacist said it was an inadvertent mistake, but upon further examination of the matter, he admitted on Wednesday that he intentionally removed refrigeration vaccine, hospital officials said.
The individual, a resident of Grafton in the suburbs of Milwaukee, was arrested Thursday and jailed in the Ozaukee County Jail for the felony of recklessly endangering safety, tampering with a prescription drug and causing damage property criminals, police said.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Rebecca Spalding in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
[ad_2]
Source link