MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Authorities arrested a suburban Milwaukee pharmacist Thursday suspected of deliberately ruining hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine by removing it from refrigeration for two nights.
The Grafton Police Department said the former Advocate Aurora Health pharmacist was arrested on suspicion of reckless endangerment, adulterating a prescription drug and criminal damage to property. The department said in a news release that he was in jail. Police did not identify the pharmacist, saying he has not yet been formally charged.
Advocate Aurora Health Care Chief Medical Group Officer Jeff Bahr told reporters during a teleconference Thursday afternoon that the pharmacist deliberately removed 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine from refrigeration overnight on Dec. 24 into Dec. 25, returned them, then left them out again on the night of Dec. 25 into Saturday. A pharmacy technician discovered the vials outside the refrigerator on Saturday morning. Workers used the vaccine to inoculate 57 people. Bahr said their doses were ineffective.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A pharmacist at a suburban Milwaukee medical center deliberately removed hundreds of coronavirus vaccine doses from refrigeration and left them out overnight twice, not just once as officials initially believed, the health system’s chief medical officer said Thursday.
Employees at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton inoculated nearly 60 people with the ruined vaccine, not knowing the doses had been left out too long, rendering their shots less effective or ineffective, Jeff Bahr, chief medical officer for Aurora Advocate Health, told reporters during a teleconference. The recipients shouldn’t be in any danger, he said, but the system is monitoring their conditions.