The official name of the male healthcare worker has not been released. The roster of inmates at Ozauki County Jail shows that 46-year-old Steven Bandenberg made the same charge on Thursday. Brandenburg is also listed as a licensed pharmacist in Wisconsin
Police have arrested a Wisconsin pharmacist accused of intentionally tampering with 57 vials of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, taking them out of the fridge and giving 57 people ‘ineffective’ doses before they are left overnight.
Grafton police said a former employee of Grafton’s advocate Rora Health Hospital was arrested Thursday afternoon on charges of endangering first-degree reckless safety, tampering with prescription drugs and criminal damage to property.
The official name of the male healthcare worker has not been released. The roster of inmates at Ozauki County Jail shows that 46-year-old Steven Bandenberg made the same charge on Thursday.
Brandenburg is also listed as a licensed pharmacist in Wisconsin.
Police began investigating the incident at the hospital on Wednesday but its motive is not yet known. The cost of the spoiled vaccine is estimated at, 8,000 to 11 11,000.
The suspect was arrested the same day after Wisconsin health officials revealed that 57 people had been given an ineffective dose of the vaccine after being ‘intentionally’ spoiled.
The chairman of Ora Rora Health Care Medical Group in Wisconsin, Dr. Jeff Bahr said Thursday that the offender did not first get out of the freezer on Friday night, but he did it on Thursday night as well – returning it to the fridge the next morning. Before anyone notices.
The net was closed on the suspect when the pharmacist technician found the vials from the fridge on Saturday morning.
Because hospital officials were unaware that they too had been discharged the night before, some doses were considered to be OK and the rest were given to 57 people before being discharged.
Aurora Medical Center Grafton is now working with Moderna to determine how to vaccinate affected individuals safely.
The medical center originally thought the dose was “inadvertently removed from a pharmacy refrigerator overnight,” but said Wednesday that the offender acted “intentionally” and fired, while Grafton police and the FBI launched an investigation.
Police arrested a Wisconsin pharmacist who deliberately took 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine out of the fridge and left 57 people out overnight before being given an ‘ineffective’ dose. In Grafton in Rora Medical Center
Bahr gave a press conference through Zoom on Thursday where he revealed that the culprit was a pharmacist at the hospital and gave further details on the saga.
He said a pharmacy technician first discovered that 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine had been left outside the fridge in which they had been stored as early as Saturday.
The technician returned the vials to the fridge and reported the incident to his superiors.
Bahr said the pharmacist in charge had earlier claimed he had made an “unintentional mistake” of leaving them out of the fridge while accessing other items in the same unit.
The vaccine can be kept out of the fridge for up to 12 hours before it becomes ineffective.
The prevention was accidental and based on the belief that the vials were out of the fridge for less than this time, the hospital’s clinical leaders determined that the vaccine was still administered.
A total of 57 people were given the first dose of the Moderna vaccine on the morning of December 26 at 57 Rora Medical Center Grafton.
The rest of the vials were discarded after being ‘rendered ineffective’.
The chairman of Ora Rora Health Care Medical Group in Wisconsin, Dr. Jeff Bahr revealed Thursday that the culprit behind the destruction not only first came out of Venus on Friday night, but also last night – before the fridge was caught before returning them.
But after an internal review, hospital staff became increasingly “suspicious” about the pharmacist’s behavior over the next few days, according to Bahr.
Eventually ‘after multiple interviews’ the vials from the fridge were deliberately ‘accepted’ before being discarded.
The pharmacist then also admitted that he had removed the vials from the freezer, left them overnight on Thursday, but returned them to the fridge on Friday morning before seeing anyone.
This meant that the vials were not really ineffective or effective, Bahre said.
Bahre insisted that ‘there is no evidence’ that individuals given ineffective doses could be harmed and that the hospital was working with Moderna to plan how the affected doses could be delivered safely.
’57 has been notified, ‘Bahre said.
‘There is no evidence that these vaccines do any harm to them unless they are potentially less effective or ineffective.
‘Moderna assured us that there is no safety concern with vaccinating which is too long outside the fridge. We will partner with them and the FDA to determine future vaccination strategies for the 57 affected individuals. ‘
The boss of the hospital also said that he is confident that no vials other than 57 were wasted as the hospital did not receive any dose before the question day.
There is also no evidence ‘he tampered with the vaccine in any other way, someone else removed it from the fridge, Bahre said, as he tried to convince people that this was the work of a bad actor rather than a bad process. ‘
Grafton Police said a former employee of Grafton’s Advocate Health Rora Health Hospital was arrested Thursday afternoon on charges of endangering first-degree reckless safety, tampering with prescription medicine and criminal damage to property.
Police and federal officials began an investigation Wednesday after an employee through the Wisconsin health system confessed to intentionally wasting 500 doses of the coronavirus vaccine.
Ora Rora Medical Center first reported that the dose was wasted on Saturday, saying they were accidentally left unfriended overnight by an employee at Graroton’s ur Rora Medical Center.
The health system said Wednesday that the dose of the vaccine was deliberately wasted.
Late Wednesday evening statement Rora said in a statement that the employee involved admitted that they deliberately removed the vaccine from the refrigerator.
Ora Rora said he fired the employee and referred the matter to authorities.
‘We believe that vaccination is the way out of the epidemic. “We are more than disappointed that these individual actions will delay more than 500 people from receiving their vaccines,” the statement said. ‘
Police and federal officials began an investigation Wednesday.
The number of COVID-19 cases dropped in Wisconsin in early December.
The state health department on Thursday registered 10 cases of newly confirmed cases, witnessing an increasing third day of infection every day.
There are now 481,102 cases reported in the state.
COVID-19 had 41 more deaths, bringing the total death toll in the state to 4,859. The survival rate remained unchanged at 99 percent.
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