Authorities on Thursday arrested a suburban pharmacist in Milwaukee on suspicion of deliberately destroying hundreds of doses of COVID-19 vaccine by removing it from the refrigerator for two nights.
The Grafton police station said the former attorney Aurora Health Pharmacist was arrested on suspicion of reckless threat, which is the prescription of a prescription drug and criminal case damage. The department said in a news release that he was in jail. Police have not identified the pharmacist and said he has not yet been formally charged.
His motive remains unclear. Police said detectives believed he knew the spoiled doses would be useless and that people receiving them would mistakenly think they were vaccinated if they did not.
Lawyer Aurora Health Care, chief medical officer of Jeff Bahr, told reporters during a teleconference Thursday afternoon that the pharmacist was deliberately taking 57 vials containing hundreds of doses of the Moderna-National Institutes of Health vaccine from the refrigerator in a medical center of Grafton removed on December 24 overnight. -25, returned them and then left them out again the night of December 25-26. The vials contain enough doses to vaccinate 570 people.
Police in Grafton, which is about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, said in a statement that the department, the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration are “actively” investigating the matter. Police said they were notified Wednesday night of the alleged tampering.
A pharmacy technician discovered the bottles outside the refrigerator Saturday morning. Bahr said the pharmacist initially said he had removed the vaccine to gain access to other items in the refrigerator, and that he had not accidentally replaced it.
The Moderna vaccine is still viable outside refrigeration for 12 hours, so workers used the vaccine to vaccinate 57 people before throwing away the rest. Police said the discards were worth between $ 8,000 and $ 11,000.
Bahr said health care officials became more suspicious of the pharmacist as they reviewed the incident. After several interviews, the pharmacist admitted on Wednesday that he deliberately removed the vaccine and left it out overnight 24-25 December, at one point brought it back in the fridge and then removed it again overnight 25-26 December.
Bahr said that means the doses people receive on Saturday are almost useless. Moderna told Aurora that there are no security issues, but the system is keeping a close eye on it, he said.
Bahr declined to comment on the pharmacist’s motive.
Aurora said he fired the employee and referred the matter to authorities. The statement says nothing about a possible motive for the spoilage.
“We still believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic. “We are more than disappointed that the actions of this individual will result in a delay of more than 500 people receiving their vaccination,” the statement said.