By Michelle Durand Daily Journal Staff.
The Kaiser Foundation Hospital in South San Francisco was fined $50,000 for improperly storing vaccines below freezing temperatures, potentially weakening the inoculations and tuberculosis skin test solutions for up to 3,921 patients.
In 2009, a survey to reduce medication errors by the California Department of Public Health found that vaccines were refrigerated at temperatures as low as minus eight degrees Celsius for a 32-month span. As a result, the vaccination status for nearly 4,000 patients was deemed either ineffective or unknown.
Three of the patients who received a compromised vaccine developed pneumonia and one 80-year-old died from the condition, according to the CDPH.
None of the three patients were ever notified their vaccines were potentially faulty which the CDPH cited as its reason for the penalty.
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