UPDATE --- 2:41 PM, THURSDAY DEC. 31
The President of Aurora Health Care Medical Group says that there is no known motive for why the vaccine was left out intentionally.
Furthermore, the president added that 57 people did in fact receive the vaccine after it was left out for the longer than appropriate time. The president said that there is no health harm to getting the spoiled vaccine. He added it was either ineffective or noneffective. He said Moderna confirmed this as well.
All those people who did receive the vaccine have been notified.
No other vaccines were tampered with.
Aurora Health Care said that the Grafton Police and FBI are invovled in the investigation.
UPDATE --- 2:25 PM
The Department of Health Services Secretary Designee Andrea Palm gives an official statement about happened the intentionally discarded Moderna vaccines in Grafton:
“It is disappointing that any COVID-19 vaccine was wasted in Wisconsin. As we have seen over the last few weeks, our healthcare workers are eager to protect themselves from contracting COVID-19 through vaccination. They are on the frontlines of our fight against this illness and have seen the dire consequences that can result from contracting COVID-19.
“Immediately upon notification, DHS followed up with Aurora and has worked closely with them as they have investigated the situation, reviewed their processes and implemented improvements. We will continue to work with our healthcare partners to get as many shots in arms as quickly and safely as possible.”
Wednesday, Dec. 30
An Advocate Aurora Health employee "intentionally" removed 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine from refrigeration to spoil them. The employee has been fired, Advocate Aurora Health said in a press release.
Over the weekend, 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine had to be thrown out when an employee removed the vials from the Grafton clinic refrigerator in order to access something else and did not return them.
Originally, Aurora Health Care said that they, "were inadvertently removed from a pharmacy refrigerator overnight."
However, on Wednesday night, they came out with a statement saying the employee did so "intentionally" and never returned the vaccine.
Aurora Health said they are still investigating the incident but that the employee has been fired.
Here is the entire statement from Aurora.
"Earlier this week, we learned that 57 vials of Moderna vaccine were removed from a pharmacy refrigerator at Aurora Medical Center - Grafton overnight, resulting in more than 500 doses of vaccine being discarded. We immediately launched an internal review and were led to believe this was caused by inadvertent human error. The individual in question today acknowledged that they intentionally removed the vaccine from refrigeration. We have notified appropriate authorities for further investigation. 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. This was a violation of our core values, and the individual is no longer employed by us."
