Investigation launched after medical centre says worker admitted leaving 500 doses out of refrigeration
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| Boxes containing the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine sit in a refrigerator at Augusta University in Georgia. Photograph: Michael Holahan/AP |
Police in Wisconsin said on Thursday evening that they had arrested a hospital employee who was fired after being suspected of intentionally spoiling hundreds of doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Law enforcement and federal authorities in the US had already been investigating after a health center in the state said an employee admitted to deliberately spoiling 500 doses of the coronavirus vaccine.
Aurora medical center, in Grafton, first reported that the doses of the Moderna vaccine had been spoiled on Saturday, saying a staff member had accidentally left them out of refrigeration overnight.
On Wednesday, however, it said the doses appeared to have been spoiled deliberately.
Police in Grafton, about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, said the department, the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration were investigating the case.
A pharmacist at the suburban medical center deliberately removed hundreds of coronavirus vaccine doses from refrigeration and left them out overnight – twice, not just once as officials had initially believed, the health system’s chief medical officer said later on Thursday.
Employees at the 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, the 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.
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 said they were notified of the alleged tampering on Wednesday night, but that no other information would be immediately released. They declined to say if any arrests had been made.
In a statement late on Wednesday, Aurora said the employee involved “acknowledged that they intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration”. Aurora said it had fired the person in question and referred the matter to the authorities. The statement said nothing about a possible motive for the action.
“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 statement said.
The tampering will delay inoculation for hundreds of people, Aurora Health officials said, in a state where 3,170 new cases were reported and 40 people died on Wednesday of Covid-19, according to the Washington Post’s coronavirus tracker.
Leonard Peace, an FBI spokesman in Milwaukee, would not comment on the bureau’s involvement but said of the episode: “We’re aware of it.”
Initiating an internal review on Monday, hospital officials said they were initially “led to believe” the incident was caused by “inadvertent human error”.
The vials were removed on Friday and most were discarded on Saturday, with only a few still safe to administer, according to an earlier statement from the health system. Each vial has enough for 10 vaccinations but can sit at room temperature for only 12 hours.
Two days later, the employee acknowledged having “intentionally
removed the vaccine from refrigeration”, according to the hospital
statement, the Washington Post reported.
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