A Wisconsin hospital pharmacist was arrested Thursday on suspicion of intentionally wasting more than 500 doses of the coronavirus vaccine and removing it from the refrigerator, police and medical officials said. 57 vials of the vaccine were found outside cold storage earlier this week, after which they were fired, but have not been identified in public, officials said. Each vial contains 10 doses. Officials at the hospital determined that as many as 60 doses in question were administered before the drug was left unattended for a long time to ineffectively inject the vaccine. The remaining more than 500 doses were then canceled. Vaccine maker Moderna Inc. has assured the hospital that there is no safety issue in getting any dose injected from the refrigerator, unless the recipient is left unprotected from the covid infection. Dr. Jeff Bahr, ur President of Rora Health Care Medical Group. Neither Arora Health nor law enforcement offered any potential motive for the sabotage. Those who received ineffective doses have been reported and will need to be re-vaccinated. The episode means that vaccinations will be delayed for 570 people who should have received the first shot of the two-dose vaccine by now. Speaking at a press online press briefing on Thursday, Bahar said there was no evidence of tampering with the vaccine. In addition to removing them from the refrigerator, or any other dose was disturbed. Grafton police said in a statement that the pharmacist knew the spoiled vaccines would be useless and that those who received the vaccine thought they had been vaccinated against the virus. The fact is they weren’t. The incident comes amid widespread surveys expressing widespread skepticism about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine, which was approved for emergency-use by federal regulators in the United States just 11 months later. The vaccine has been expressed by some healthcare workers, who have been designated as the first in line to receive them. His specialist, a pharmacist, said it was an unintentional mistake after the missing vials were found on Dec. 26, but hospital officials said during a further review of the matter, which was admitted Wednesday to intentionally remove the vaccine from the refrigerator. The man, a resident of Grafton, in the Milwaukee suburb, was arrested Thursday and charged with Ozuki County Jail on charges of reckless endangering safety, adulteration with prescription drugs and criminal damage to property, police said.
