Wisconsin Public Radio

Pharmacist Arrested For Intentionally Ruining 500 COVID-19 Vaccine Doses

57 people received spoiled vaccinations.

By , Wisconsin Public Radio - Dec 31st, 2020 04:39 pm
Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. photo by Lisa Ferdinando. U.S. Secretary of Defense, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. photo by Lisa Ferdinando. U.S. Secretary of Defense, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

A former Advocate Aurora Health pharmacist has been arrested after admitting to deliberately spoiling more than 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine.

The health system first reported the doses of the Moderna vaccine had been spoiled on Saturday, saying they had been accidentally left out unrefrigerated overnight by an employee at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton.

Dr. Jeff Bahr, president of Aurora Health Care Medical Group, said a pharmacist later admitted to deliberately spoiling 570 doses of the vaccine.

“We became increasingly suspicious of the behavior of the individual in question,” Bahr said during a news conference Thursday. “The individual was suspended and after multiple interviews over the course of the week admitted to removing the vaccine from refrigeration.”

The pharmacist, who is not being named, admitted taking the vaccine out of the refrigerator on Dec. 24 and putting it back on Dec. 26. Bahr said 57 people were vaccinated on Dec. 26, but because the vaccine was left unrefrigerated for several hours, it was less effective.

“The 57 recipients of those vaccinations were notified,” Bahr said. “At this time there is no evidence that the vaccinations pose any harm to them.”

Grafton Police arrested the pharmacist Thursday, recommending felony charges including recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug and criminal damage to property. He is currently being held in the Ozaukee County Jail.

“Grafton detectives indicate that the individual knew the spoiled vaccinations would be useless and that people who received the vaccinations would think they had been vaccinated against the virus when in fact they were not,” according to a statement released by police on Thursday.

Police estimate the value of the spoiled doses to be between $8,000 and $11,000.

The FBI and U.S. Food and Drug Administration are also investigating the case.

Bahr did not want to comment on the pharmacist’s motive but said Advocate Aurora is in touch with the FDA about getting more doses for the individuals who received the ineffective vaccinations. He stressed the vaccines are the “only way out of the pandemic.”

Wisconsin Pharmacist Arrested After Deliberately Spoiling More Than 500 COVID-19 Vaccine Doses was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.

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More about the Coronavirus Pandemic

Read more about Coronavirus Pandemic here

More about the Vaccine Tampering Pharmacist

Read more about Vaccine Tampering Pharmacist here

3 thoughts on “Pharmacist Arrested For Intentionally Ruining 500 COVID-19 Vaccine Doses”

  1. Thomas Sepllman says:

    NO NAME NO MOTIVE IS THERE A FAMILY NAME INVOLVED Why else do we not publish it. Let’s make sure that the reactionary RIGHT WINGERS of Grafton and the other North Shore Suburbs are protected Did he/she have a conscience that he told the vaccine was no good or how was that figured out. Then someone could have planted the virus and when 10 folks who were vaccinated came down with the virus how much of a problem would that have caused.

    The suicided man at least notified all around that there was a bomb BUT it seems that it would have been possible if the Hospital had made the easy assumption that it was an accident. SUCH EVIL

  2. Larraine says:

    Why, again, is the pharmacist with a major medical corporation who intentionally destroyed Covid vaccine not being named, criminal indictment or not?
    Because he’s a privileged white male who is being given time to hire a promoter?
    Argh Wisconsin

  3. Bjorn Nasett says:

    This is what Trump has wrought. Now even healthcare is a political act. What happened to caring for others? How does this pharmacist feel about other drugs he has dispensed? Who else was harmed by his reckless criminal behavior before he was caught this time. SHAME on him!

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