Authorities on Thursday arrested a pharmacist in a Milwaukee suburb who is suspected of deliberately ruining hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine by taking it out of the fridge for two nights.
Grafton police said the former Advocate Aurora Health pharmacist was arrested on suspicion of reckless threat, falsifying a prescription drug and criminal property damage.
The department said in a press release that he was in prison. Police have not identified the pharmacist and say he has not yet been formally charged.
Advocate Aurora Health Care Chief Medical Group Officer Jeff Bahr told reporters during a conference call Thursday afternoon that the pharmacist deliberately removed 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine from the refrigerator from December 24 to December 25, returned them and then again on the night of December 25. on Saturday.
A pharmacy assistant discovered the bottles outside the fridge on Saturday morning. Workers used the vaccine to inoculate 57 people. Bahr said their doses were ineffective. The receivers should not be at risk, he said, but the system is monitoring their condition.
“This was a situation involving a bad actor as opposed to a bad trial,” he said.
The Grafton facility had not received a Moderna vaccine before Dec. 24, meaning the pharmacist would not have had the opportunity to tamper with other vials, he added.
“We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic. We are more than disappointed that this person’s actions will result in a delay of more than 500 people getting their vaccine, ”the health care system said in a statement.
The number of COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin has been on the rise in recent days after dropping in early December. The State Department of Health Services reported 3,810 new confirmed cases on Thursday, marking the third day in a row of increasing daily infections. The state has now seen 481,102 cases.
COVID-19 was a factor in 41 additional deaths, bringing the state’s total death toll to 4,859. The survival rate remained unchanged at 99%.