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.
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.
The pharmacist intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration, Bahr said, but he declined to comment on the individual's motive, saying the person has been fired and police are investigating.
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He did not identify the pharmacist and stressed that the facility's security protocols are sound.
“This was a situation involving a bad actor, as opposed to a bad process,” he said.
Police in Grafton, about 32 kilometers north of Milwaukee, said in a statement that the department, FBI and Food and Drug Administration are “actively” investigating.
No arrests have been announced. No one returned messages left at the Grafton department or FDA. Leonard Peace, a spokesman for the FBI's Milwaukee office, said he could neither confirm nor deny the bureau was involved in an investigation.
Bahr said during his teleconference that a pharmacy tech at the Grafton facility discovered 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine outside their refrigerator early on Saturday morning. The vials contained enough doses to inoculate about 570 people, he said.
The vials were returned to the refrigerator and the tech reported the discovery. The pharmacist who removed them initially said he or she took them out to access other items in the refrigerator and inadvertently failed to replace them, Bahr said.
The Moderna vaccine is viable for 12 hours after being removed from refrigeration. In light of that, Bahr said medical personnel used doses from the thawed vials to inoculate 57 people on Saturday and discarded the rest.
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He said officials in the health system suspended the pharmacist after growing more suspicious over the next few days. After multiple interviews, the pharmacist admitted Wednesday to deliberately removing the vials from the refrigerator overnight December 24 to December 25 before returning them and then removing them a second time, Bahr said.
That meant that the vaccine had been outside the refrigerator for longer than 12 hours and the doses administered to the 57 people on Saturday were rendered less effective or totally ineffective, Bahr said.
Moderna officials have told Aurora that the spoiled vaccine shouldn't pose any safety concerns, Bahr said.
The Grafton facility hadn't received any Moderna vaccine before Dec. 24, which means the pharmacist wouldn't have had an opportunity to tamper with any other vials, he added.
“We continue to believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic. We are more than disappointed that this individual’s actions will result in a delay of more than 500 people receiving their vaccine,” the health care system said in a statement.
The number of COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin has been rising in recent days after dipping in early December. The state Department of Health Services reported 3,810 newly confirmed cases on Thursday, marking the third straight day of rising daily infections. The state has now seen 481,102 cases.
COVID-19 was a factor in 41 more deaths, pushing the state's overall death toll to 4,859. The survival rate remained unchanged at 99 per cent.
Reported by Todd Richmond for the Associated Press.
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