An employee at an Aurora Health facility outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, was fired after admitting to removing 500 doses of vaccine from its refrigeration, ruining them and causing them to be discarded.
Hospital officials said they were initially led to believe that 57 vials were removed from the pharmacy refrigerator inadvertently, but the employee admitted two days later that the act had been committed intentionally.
The employee has not yet been identified, but was fired, and local police in Grafton as well as the FBI and the Food and Drug Administration were investigating.
Jeff Bahr, president of Aurora Health Care Medical Group, was scheduled to provide an update on the incident Thursday afternoon.
Tara C. Smith, an epidemiologist at Kent State University and an authority on antipathy toward vaccines, said the incident will prompt medical providers to reassess who has access to the shots, even among their own employees.