Pharmacist Who Intentionally Left Covid-19 Vaccines Out Of Refrigeration Arrested In The United States | Vaccine

The pharmacist was an employee at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, at the time 57 vials of vaccine were found outside of cold storage earlier this week. He has already been fired but has not been publicly identified, authorities said.

Each bottle contains 10 doses. Nearly 60 of the doses in question were administered before hospital officials determined the drug had been left out of refrigeration long enough for the vaccine to be ineffective. The remaining 500 doses were then discarded.

Moderna Inc, the maker of the vaccine, assured the hospital that receiving an injection of any of the withdrawn doses from refrigeration poses no risk, unless it leaves the recipient unprotected from Covid infection, Dr. Jeff Bahr said, Aurora Health Care President of the Medical Group.

Neither Aurora Health nor the police offered any possible reason for the sabotage.

Those who received ineffective doses have been notified and should be revaccinated. The episode means that the immunization of 570 people who should have already received their first injection of the two-dose vaccine will be delayed.

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In an online press conference on Thursday, Bahr said there was no evidence that the pharmacist had tampered with the vaccines beyond removing them from the refrigerator, or that any other doses had been changed.

Grafton police said in a statement that the pharmacist “knew that spoiled vaccines would be useless and that people who received the vaccines would think they were vaccinated against the virus when they weren’t.”

The incident comes amid public opinion polls showing widespread skepticism about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines, which were granted emergency use authorization by federal regulators just 11 months after the virus emerged in the states. United.

The reluctance to receive the vaccine was even expressed by some health professionals who are among those designated as the first to receive it.

When initially asked after the missing vials were discovered on Dec. 26, the pharmacist said it was an inadvertent mistake, but during a more detailed examination of the matter, he admitted Wednesday that he intentionally removed the vaccine from the refrigerator, the officials said. authorities. hospital.

The individual, a resident of Grafton, outside of Milwaukee, was arrested Thursday and charged in the Ozaukee County Jail on criminal charges of recklessly risking safety, tampering with a prescription drug and criminal damage to property, the said. person. policeman.

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