This article was originally published on December 31, 2020
MADISON, Wis. (AP) – Authorities arrested a suburban pharmacist from Milwaukee on Thursday, suspected of deliberately spoiling hundreds of doses of the coronavirus vaccine by removing them from the refrigerator for two nights.
The arrest marks another setback in what was a slower and more confused start to vaccinate Americans than public health officials expected. Leaders in Wisconsin and other states have been pleading with the Trump administration for more doses while healthcare professionals and the elderly line up for the life-saving vaccine.
Police in Grafton, about 20 miles (32 km) north of Milwaukee, said pharmacist lawyer Aurora Health was arrested on suspicion of reckless danger, tampering with a prescription drug and criminal damage to property, all crimes. The pharmacist was fired and the police said in a press release that he was in prison. Police have not identified the pharmacist, claiming he has not yet been formally charged.
Its motive remains unclear. Police said detectives believed he knew that the spoiled doses would be useless and the people who received them would mistakenly think they had been vaccinated, when in fact they were not.
Lawyer Aurora Health Care, director of the Medical Group Jeff Bahr, told reporters during a conference call on Thursday afternoon that the pharmacist deliberately removed 57 vials containing hundreds of doses of the Modern vaccine from refrigeration at a Grafton medical center during the night of December 24 to 25, returned them and then left them out again on the night of December 25 for Saturday. The vials contained sufficient doses to inoculate 570 people.
A pharmacy technician discovered the bottles out of the refrigerator on Saturday morning. Bahr said the pharmacist initially said he removed the bottles to access other items in the refrigerator and inadvertently did not put them back.
The Modern vaccine is viable for 12 hours outside refrigeration, so workers used the vaccine to inoculate 57 people before discarding the rest. Police said the dropped doses were worth between $ 8,000 and $ 11,000.
Bahr said health care workers were more suspicious of the pharmacist as they reviewed the incident. After several interviews, the pharmacist acknowledged on Wednesday that he intentionally removed the vaccine during the two nights, Bahr said.
This means that the doses that people received on Saturday are virtually useless, he said. Moderna told Aurora that there are no safety concerns, but the hospital’s system is closely monitoring people who have received the damaged doses, he said.
Bahr declined to comment on the pharmacist’s motive. He said the hospital’s security protocols are sound.
“This was a situation involving a bad actor,” he said, “as opposed to a bad process.”
The number of COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin has increased in the past few days, after falling in early December. The state Department of Health Services reported 3,810 new confirmed cases on Thursday, marking the third consecutive day of increase in daily infections. The state has seen 481,102 cases.
COVID-19 was a factor in another 41 deaths, bringing the total number of deaths in the state to 4,859. The survival rate remained unchanged at 99%.
Just over 47,150 people were vaccinated in Wisconsin on Monday morning, according to the latest data from the health agency. The state received 265,575 doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. As of Monday morning, only about 157,000 doses had arrived.
Democratic Governor Tony Evers wrote a letter to President Donald Trump in early December asking him to prioritize more doses for Wisconsin due to the high number of cases, overcrowded hospitals and a lack of mitigation mandates across the state.
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