HOW could something like that happen in the first place? An air-filled syringe does not have the same feel as a full one, and there are some very good reasons why we’re taught in pharmacy school (and nursing school too) to ALWAYS READ THE LABEL.
WHAT…THE…FUCK??? Why would they even be giving saline shots, much less ‘empty’ syringes? Who is overseeing this nonsense, and why aren’t their medical credentials immediately revoked?
It is really time for the federal government to just step in and take over the vaccination program. It is so abundantly clear that the state health departments are, by and large, simply not constituted to run a broad scale vaccination campaign, and handing it off to commercial pharmacies and private for-profit groups has been a complete fiasco. Even where this is ostensibly working, the CDC should be overseeing vaccine distribution to assure that it is going where it is needed rather than where state and local politics dictates, and that it is being tracked and applied by competent people with accountability.
Stranger
An injection of air could be fatal, too. You just can’t take any chances with this.
I wonder if this is like that wacko in Wisconsin who left a large number of doses out in order to spoil them? I agree that the state board needs to do an investigation, and yank (or at least restrict) the licenses of everyone involved.
I was under the impression (correct me if I’m wrong) that injecting air into someone is dangerous.
It is quite dangerous, and one of the critical steps in giving an injection is to assure all entrained air has been removed from the syringe, e.g. tapping/flicking the up-ended syringe and pushing the plunger until liquid comes out. I don’t see how this could happen without someone giving injections being totally untrained or dangerously incompetent, notwithstanding why they would be filling syringes with saline solution to begin with.
Stranger
It is - EXTREMELY dangerous, even if it was an IM injection.
I just realized that there’s also some insurance fraud possibly going on, if this was deliberate (which I can’t imagine it being otherwise).
It’s totally safe if you’re using a standard-sized syringe. It will dissolve completely before it reaches the brain. Those only hold about 3-5mL. To create an air embolism you need 100x more volume than that, introduced over a period of seconds. It wouldn’t be possible to do this without mechanical assistance.
If regular syringes really posed that much danger, we’d have seen thousands of diabetics dropping dead from air-bubble overdoses, and consumers would never be trusted to use that product safely ever again.
You can tell that I have lived in the northeast my whole life: I was trying to figure out if I should know who Virginia Kroger is because I’ve never heard of her before.
Is it actually possible to inject a whole syringe worth of air into someone? It feels like there’d be resistance.
Insulin isn’t injected IV, not at home anyway.
Not intentionally, no.
Me too.
As each year passes, I am more and more convinced that “states’ rights” is the petard which will hoist this country.
Except even if the federal government were running the vaccination program, they’d still be outsourcing vaccine administration to local hospitals, pharmacies and clinics. I don’t see the federal government doing it on its own.
Most of you need to chill your jets. Nobody is going to die from the amount of air in the size of syringe used for the Covid vaccine going into their deltoid muscle mass. That would be about .3ml. Infinitesimal, in spite of what we see on TV. Not a good idea to do purposely but far from deadly.
And I doubt that Kroger was somehow trying to massively defraud the government either. Any pharmacist has a hundred chances a day to do that and in far greater amounts than the $75-80 they could get for administering a vaccine and much easier to get away with.
And no one deserves to lose their license over it, especially not knowing more about it. Being a nurse who has worked huge public health vaccination clinics in the 2009/2010 H1N1 epidemic and since, it is possible to see how it could happen. More than one person setting up doses, the hand off of communication being harried. Any number of things could explain it. Employees were educated and retrained, the incident is being examined, no one deserves to take a hit to their career over it unless and until it is found that they were intentionally sabotaging the vaccinations and it does not sound like they were.
It never should have been managed state-by-state, but mainly because of the massive logistics challenge associated with rolling out what is essentially modern medicine’s Manhattan project. That shouldn’t be a slap at state and local departments of health, who do quality work and are capable of working with local officials to administer vaccination programs. The problem started with the Trump administration, and it was exacerbated by the fucking governors and legislatures who have blatantly politicized the whole thing.
Does the J&J shot need to be diluted with saline before being administered? That’s the only think I can think off off the top of my head. That someone screwed up diluting/mixing the vial and gave people straight saline.
The only other thing I can even sorta kinda think of is that maybe the pharm techs aren’t used to giving injections and were practicing on each other with saline. Mix up the practice vial with the real vial and someone gets the wrong stuff.
As for the air, I’m not sure.Perhaps someone had syringes with the plunger pulled back with the intent of drawing the med into them (since you have to insert it into the vial ‘pressurize’ it with air and then draw out the med and someone else thought they were ready to go. But even that seems like a pretty gross oversight.
My mom taught me to give her Embril injections and I find it hard to believe that anyone giving a shot would fail to notice that a syringe was empty, let alone apparently multiple syringes were empty.
^ This.
There were always going to be some issues with mass vaccination no matter who was running it out.
My current employer has a pharmacy in-store, with pharmacists trained to give vaccinations for years now. Every store has spent months prepping for covid vaccination. We’re doing in-store vaccination clinics now and I’ve participated in one. They’re busy, but I was in and out in 40 minutes and that included post-vaccination observation time.
Don’t disparage the literal tens of thousands of vaccination locations that are doing a good job because one was found to be a total cluster-f***. That’s like saying that because 1 person in a million has a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine it’s horribly dangerous and no one should take it. No, it means a system that large isn’t ever going to be perfect and we should keep a watch over it and correct any problems that arise.
I was thinking this. I don’t think any vaccination tech would ever consciously draw any volume of air and inject it into a patient. It’s not an especially risky thing to do, but it’s medically unnecessary and simply Not Done. I think that’s just a poorly worded press release.
The press release never says they injected air, they only said an “empty syringe” was used, which could be some PR flack’s way of saying saline. So that’s the interpretation I’m going with. They got a shot of some inert liquid instead of the vaccine.
Agreed - I actually appreciate the in-store pharmacy vaccination sites, where I’ve been getting my flu vaccines the last few years. I also got some vaccines from the county health department when I was living in PA. If you can just get the vaccines to the states and local distribution centers in an orderly manner, they’ll get it done.
Sheesh, Azar/Trump shamelessly lied their asses off right up until inauguration day, telling everyone that more vaccines were being sent out and that they’d be on their way to vaccinating millions of people. They didn’t even have the supplies in hand!!! I don’t even think they had been produced yet. And they bungled the purchase orders months before that.
I won’t defend the horrible error that apparently happened in this case that the OP mentions, but most of the local health officials and pharmacies are more than capable of implementing vaccine programs - even brand new vaccines. The shortages of supplies in January and February are 1000% Trump’s fault and nobody else’s. Period.