(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A pharmacist at a suburban Milwaukee hospital has been arrested for allegedly tampering with several vials of COVID-19 vaccine, actions that officials say caused hundreds of doses to be spoiled.
Executives at Advocate Aurora Health said the former employee deliberately tried to spoil hundreds of doses of the coronavirus vaccine not once, but twice.
When a pharmacy technician first found 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine outside of a freezer at the clinic in Grafton, Wisconsin last Saturday, Aurora Healthcare Group president Dr. Jeff Bahr said the pharmacist on duty said it was an accident.
"Over the subsequent days," Dr. Bahr told reporters during a Zoom update Thursday, "we became increasingly suspicious of the behavior of the individual in question.
“The individual was suspended, and after multiple interviews over the course of the week, admitted to intentionally removing the vaccine from refrigeration."
The pharmacist also revealed they removed the vaccine supply from refrigeration between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but eventually put it back.
Grafton, Wisconsin police say they arrested the former employee but did not identify him. The pharmacist faces several felony charges, including recklessly endangering safety and adulterating a prescription drug, police said.
Dr. Bahr says the facility has learned that 57 people received doses of the unrefrigerated vaccine before it was thrown out.
He said there's no health risk to those people, but the doses they received are less effective.
The facility has been in touch with those recipients and is working with Moderna to figure out how to move forward with them.
Advocate Aurora Health is not commenting on a possible motive, but federal and local authorities are now part of the investigation.
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