Health

(NEW YORK) — A group of seven women are suing Yale University, claiming they underwent invasive and painful procedures for in-vitro fertilization and received saline instead of fentanyl, an opioid painkiller.

According to the complaint, the women received saline after a nurse at the Yale University Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility Clinic stole fentanyl for her personal use last year and replaced it with saline.

As a result, the women underwent a fertility procedure — oocyte retrieval — without pain management, according to the complaint, which described the process as “excruciating.”

“Oocyte egg retrieval is an extremely invasive procedure,” the law firm representing the women said in a statement. “Doctors and nurses explained to these patients that this surgery would require a dose of fentanyl to alleviate pain. However, each was then unknowingly treated with saline instead.”

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in state court in Waterbury, Connecticut, by the women and their spouses, accuses Yale University of failing to follow protocols and thereby allowing the fentanyl to be tampered with.

The complaint also alleges there were “hundreds” of incidents in which saline was substituted for fentanyl.

“Yale University takes no responsibility for the hundreds of fentanyl substitution events that took place at the REI Clinic; it blames the single nurse who was able to steal the fentanyl, unabated, for more than twenty weeks,” the complaint said.

“But for years, Yale University recognized the lurking danger of opioid diversion and the catastrophic injuries posed by healthcare worker opioid substitution,” according to the lawsuit.

The nurse, Donna Monticone, pleaded guilty in March to one count of tampering with a consumer product and surrendered her nursing license. She was sentenced in May to four weekends in prison, three months of home confinement and three years of supervised release.

A Yale University spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit.

In March, following Monticone’s guilty plea, a Yale spokesperson issued a statement stating patients had been informed and that “changes are underway.”

“Yale has informed patients that there is no reason to believe that the nurse’s action harmed their health or the outcome of their treatment. The Fertility Center routinely uses a combination of pain medications during procedures and modifies the medications if there are signs of discomfort,” the spokesperson said in March, according to the New Haven Register. “Changes are underway in procedures, recordkeeping, and physical storage that will prevent this type of activity from happening again.”

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, also alleges that the women’s concerns and reports of “torturous pain” were dismissed.

“Yale University providers were alerted to the problem with its supply of fentanyl, the sole analgesic administered to women during oocyte retrievals, through patients’ intraoperative screams and postoperative reports of torturous pain, but, upon information and belief, Yale University never investigated these reports,” the complaint said. “Instead, pain was minimized as ‘normal’ for the invasive procedure, or attributed to the unavailability of an anesthesiologist on Saturdays and Sundays.”

The allegation of pain being dismissed is one that may ring true for many women, according to Dr. Jessica Shepherd, a board-certified gynecologist and chief medical officer of Verywell Health, an online medical resource.

Shepherd is not affiliated with Yale University and has no involvement with or direct knowledge of the case.

“Usually the key complaint is feeling dismissed, that patients haven’t been heard,” she said of her own personal experience with female patients who have sought her care. “It’s one thing to be able to express what you’re feeling, but even after that, what are the actions that are taken in order to reach some joint resolution of decreasing discomfort, addressing the situation, finding alternatives.”

Research through the years has also shown that women’s pain is often interpreted differently than men’s by medical providers.

A study published in April in the Journal of Pain, for instance, found that when the same level of pain was expressed by female and male patients, female patients’ pain was viewed as less intense than men’s. The study also found that female patients were prescribed more psychotherapy for for their pain, while male patients were prescribed more pain medication.

In another study, women were found to have had to wait nearly 15 minutes longer to receive pain medication in an emergency room setting than men.

“It’s a subjective symptom so it’s hard to put objectivity to it, like you would say, blood pressure, or pulse,” Shepherd said of pain. “And I think there are stereotypes about pain sensitivity and endurance of pain, so from a female perspective, it may be looked at not being able to endure as much pain, but that’s not really how pain should be monitored or evaluated.”

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(NEW YORK) — With a winter virus surge lurking and no readily available vaccines, Thanksgiving 2020 was very different for most families. This year, expectations are much higher.

But even this year, a recent uptick in COVID-19 cases means public health experts are still urging caution. Health professionals still agree that getting vaccinated is the single best a person can do to protect themselves and their loved ones — especially unvaccinated children.

“Vaccines are only as efficacious as the number of people that get them. So a good time to remind people to get their COVID vaccines if they’re still holding out,” said Dr. Molly Fleece, an infectious disease doctor at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. “What we do not want to see this year is a so-called twin-demic, where we have peaks of influenza as well as COVID during our holiday season.”

Layering different protective measures is the best overall strategy, experts told ABC News. Dr. Anne Liu, an infectious disease and allergy specialist at Stanford University, advises people “to not rely just on vaccination, but to also be thoughtful about when to implement masking and rapid testing.”

Dr. Leana Wen, a former Baltimore health commissioner, said she’s asking family members to limit activities that could potentially expose them to COVID-19 in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.

“We are asking everybody to reduce their overall risk for the three- to five-day period before, and we’re all taking a rapid test the morning of,” she added.

Another option is testing.

“Testing ahead of time does make a low-risk situation with all vaccinated people even lower risk,” said Dr. Paul Sax, clinical director of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. “I especially recommend it if someone at the gathering is older or potentially immunocompromised.”

There are multiple types of COVID-19 tests, including PCR tests, rapid tests and antibody tests. Infectious disease experts agreed that an antibody test, which looks for traces of a prior infection or prior vaccination in your blood, isn’t going to be a helpful way to protect your family over the holidays. Instead, opt for a PCR test, if you have time to wait for the results, or, a rapid test — less accurate, but faster.

“PCR test is obviously the best,” said Dr. Marc Siegel, director of infectious diseases at George Washington University. Unfortunately, during times of high demand these tests can be hard to take or results are delayed. Sax suggests that if a person is asymptomatic, doing a rapid antigen test the day before and the day of the gathering would be reasonable in lieu of a PCR test.

Once gathered, experts also suggest paying attention to ventilation. Weather permitting, have parts of gatherings outdoors helps decrease risk. It’s admittedly easier in some states.

“We’re going to actually have it outside — it’s supposed to be 65 and sunny on Thanksgiving day,” said Dr. George Rutherford, a doctor and infectious disease researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. “Plus, we can get a lot more people at the table because we can string tables together.”

But there are still options for those in colder climates.

“Even in a cold environment, it’s possible to open up a window,” said Siegel. “You might be losing some of the heat, but at least opening up a window on each side of the room to allow some room air to circulate.” Using air filters is another consideration, Sax added.

If possible, those with prior vaccinations should get their boosters before the holiday, experts said.

Ultimately, between rapid testing, better knowledge of COVID-19 transmission and the mass availability of vaccines, this year’s holiday season has the potential to be more joyous than last year’s.

Lauren Joseph, a student at Stanford Medical School, and Jacob Warner, an internal medicine resident at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, are contributors to the ABC News Medical Unit.

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(VACAVILLE, Calif.) — Emily Johnson had planned on giving birth to her second child in a hospital, with an epidural.

Instead, Johnson, 31, of Vacaville, California, gave birth to her son, Thomas Alan, on Nov. 4, on her front lawn, with no pain medication.

Johnson told “Good Morning America” she and her husband, Michael Johnson, announced their son’s birth on Facebook by posting, “Thomas is here and there is Ring footage.”

“He’s a pretty quiet and chill little dude,” Emily Johnson said of her son, noting the contrast with his “chaotic arrival.” “He just stares and watches the world go by or sleeps.”

Thomas’s unconventional birth story began around 6:30 p.m., a week before Emily’s Johnson’s due date, when she started feeling contractions that were around 10 minutes apart.

Remembering the 18-hour labor she’d had with her 3-year-old son, Emily Johnson said she and her husband thought they had plenty of time and kept monitoring the contractions.

When the contractions began to quicken just after 9 p.m., the Johnsons said they called Emily’s mom to come watch Blake, and called the hospital to tell them they were on their way.

“While Mike was getting the car packed up, the contractions went from three minutes to two minutes to one minute very rapidly,” said Emily Johnson. “And then when I was standing at the car door, I just couldn’t get in the car.”

Though the hospital was just five minutes away, Emily Johnson said she knew she wasn’t going to make it.

She moved herself to the front lawn of her home, and her husband and her mother, Kristy Sparks, who had arrived to care for Blake, began to deliver the baby while on the phone with a 911 dispatcher.

“The dispatcher really helped with the process,” said Emily Johnson. “She really guided Mike and my mom through as they were trying to keep me as calm as possible because I was having a baby on the lawn.”

At 10:42 p.m., just two minutes after paramedics arrived, Thomas Alan was born — a healthy 7 pounds, 11 ounces.

“I was right there by her side with one hand on the speakerphone and one hand with a flashlight,” said Michael Johnson. “Her mom was there to catch the baby”

Michael Johnson was able to cut the umbilical cord on the front lawn, and then paramedics transported baby and mom to the hospital.

It was there that the Johnsons said they realized their Ring camera captured Thomas’ birth.

“When Michael got to the hospital, he started looking at the footage and showing it to the nurses,” said Emily Johnson, adding that they were able to figure out how Thomas’s birth took less than 30 minutes.

Though Thomas’s birth didn’t unfold exactly as planned, it did happen on a special day: He was born on the same day as his late paternal great-grandfather, Alan, from whom he gets his middle name. And he was born two days before the 82nd birthday of his maternal great-grandfather, Thomas, from whom he gets his first name.

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(ANN ARBOR, Mich.) — Public health officials are investigating an influenza outbreak at a Michigan university that has resulted in more than 500 cases, as several schools have also seen surges in flu activity.

The University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus in Washtenaw County has reported over 525 cases among students since Oct. 6 — about three-quarters of them among people unvaccinated against the flu, school officials said this week.

The university said it is tracking a “large and sudden increase” in cases, with nearly all reported in the past two weeks.

“While we often start to see some flu activity now, the size of this outbreak is unusual,” Juan Luis Marquez, medical director at the Washtenaw County Health Department, said in a statement.

A team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is helping the university and local and state health departments investigate the outbreak, including how the flu is spreading.

Amid the surge, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is calling on people to get the flu vaccine, as vaccine administrations are down by about 26% compared to this time last year and COVID-19 cases are also on the rise.

“This outbreak comes at a time when COVID-19 infections are again surging in Michigan, with case rates, positivity rates, hospitalizations and deaths all increasing,” the department said in a release Wednesday. “State and local public health officials are concerned with the potential for increased strain on health systems if COVID-19 and influenza cases surge at the same time this winter.”

Other campuses are also battling flu outbreaks. Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey, has logged 150 flu cases among students since Nov. 1, most of which were last week, Joe Cardona, the vice president of university relations, told ABC News. In response, the school has been holding flu vaccination clinics for students and staff this week.

Spikes in flu cases have also been seen at Florida State University and Florida A&M University, the Associated Press reported earlier this month.

Public health experts have warned that this flu season might be more severe, following last season’s mild flu activity.

Flu cases saw a significant drop during the 2020-2021 season according to the CDC — likely due in part to people wearing masks, practicing frequent hand hygiene and socially distancing to help limit the spread of COVID-19.

“As we head into respiratory virus season, it is important to take every mitigation measure we can to prevent outbreaks of the flu, RSV and COVID-19,” Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, chief medical executive for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement. “Wearing masks, washing hands, social distancing and getting vaccinated for the flu and COVID-19 will help prevent the spread of illness.”

ABC News’ Sasha Pezenik contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — More than 100,000 people in the U.S. died of a drug overdose during the first year of the pandemic, a nearly 29% increase from the same time period in 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday. The vast majority of those deaths were due to opioids, particularly synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

“An American dying every five minutes — that’s game-changing,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra said at a media briefing.

The new data has prompted concern among officials about the worsening overdose epidemic.

In response to the findings, the White House, the Department of Health and Human Services and other government health officials outlined new initiatives aimed at combating the overdose epidemic, including expanding access to naloxone — a drug used to reverse opioid overdoses, allowing federal dollars to be used to purchase fentanyl test strips to detect the presence of fentanyl in any drug batch and increasing funding toward addiction prevention efforts.

The CDC previously warned that the rate of overdose deaths accelerated during the pandemic — driven largely by synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, according to the National Institutes of Health.

It can also be manufactured to look like real prescription pills and be illegally imported and sold throughout the U.S., contributing to this crisis.

“We have already seized 12,000 pounds of fentanyl,” said Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. “This year alone, the DEA has seized enough fentanyl to provide every member of the United States population with a lethal dose.”

The increased number of deaths from overdoses is also concerning for public health experts.

“This alarming data indicates a crisis in the mental health community caused by both the ongoing pandemic and fentanyl’s explosion on the illegal drug scene,” said Dr. Akhil Anand, a psychiatrist with Cleveland Clinic. “This new report should be another continued wake-up call to the overdose deaths happening every day, and people often don’t even know what they are taking. This is a public health crisis, and it is crucial we continue to get people into treatment quickly.”

The CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics launched a new interactive dashboard with an overview of the new data, featuring a U.S. map showing the increase in deaths.

Lauren Joseph, a student at Stanford Medical School, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit. Alexis E. Carrington, M.D., is an ABC News Medical Unit associate producer and a rising dermatology resident at The George Washington University.

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(NEW YORK) — The number of people who were hospitalized for eating disorders in the United States doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, new research shows.

The increase in in-patient treatment for eating disorders came as early as May 2020, according to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, whose study was published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Rising cases were seen across anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and unspecified eating disorders, according to the study.

The researchers attributed the increased rates of hospitalization to several factors, including the conditions of the pandemic that may have promoted eating disorder behaviors, such as grocery shopping being a more “fraught” experience and the fact that schools and colleges were closed, which may have led to covert eating disorder symptoms being caught by families in close quarters.

A delay in outpatient care may have also led to increased hospitalizations, according to the researchers.

Data has previously shown the pandemic has brought on a mental health crisis in the U.S., of which eating disorders are a major part.

Throughout the pandemic, the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) said it has seen a spike of more than 70% in the number of calls and online chat inquiries to its hotline compared to the same time period in 2019.

“This has been a time of heightened anxiety for everyone,” NEDA’s CEO Claire Mysko told Good Morning America last year. “For people with eating disorders, either those who are actively struggling or those who are pursuing recovery, there’s an added stressor with the pandemic.”

The Emily Program, a national network of eating disorder treatment centers, has seen inquiries both online and by phone “fly off the charts” during the pandemic, Dr. Jillian Lampert, the Emily Program’s chief strategy officer, also told GMA.

The nature of the pandemic, with its uncertainty and isolation, makes it a situation that “checks every box” for putting people at a higher risk for eating disorders, according to Lampert.

“We’re seeing people calling now in a more acute, intense stage [of an eating disorder],” Lampert said last year. “So we’re seeing not only are more people calling, but more people are calling in a more crisis situation.”

Eating disorders have remained second only to opioid overdose as the deadliest mental illness throughout the pandemic, with eating disorders responsible for one death every 52 minutes in the U.S., according to data shared by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders.

Nearly 30 million Americans will have an eating disorder in their lifetime, according to the association.

If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) at 1-800-931-2237 or NationalEatingDisorders.org.

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(NEW YORK) — It’s perfectly acceptable for 5- to-11-year-olds preparing to receive a vaccine against COVID-19 also to receive other protective shots they may have missing during the pandemic lockdown.

For some children, that could mean five or six shots in a single visit, but it’s safe to do so, doctors told ABC News.

“You can’t overwhelm the immune system with these vaccines,” said Dr. Margaret Fisher, a pediatric infectious disease specialist in New Jersey and chair of the AAP Global Immunization Advocacy Project.

Autumn is often less hectic at pediatricians’ offices, which is serendipitous for parents looking to schedule COVID-19 vaccine appointments.

“We’re kind of in a sweet spot,” said Dr. Natasha Burgert, a pediatric specialist in Kansas, with most children flooding doctors offices for back-to-school checkups over the summer.

Routine childhood vaccinations — jabs that help stave off devastating illnesses such as polio, measles, diphtheria and pertussis — are carefully laid out in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, and all states require these vaccines for children attending public school.

While most kids are up to date on routine vaccines, according to Burgert, a significant number missed appointments over the summer. In August, the nonprofit group Health Efficient estimated that community health centers would need to increase the number of childhood vaccinations by 265% to match pre-pandemic levels — and maintain that pace for at least six months.

“If kids need routine shots, either we are giving them at the same time, or we are prioritizing the COVID shot right now,” Burgert added. “This is still a global emergency.”

Pediatricians of children who need to get back on a regular vaccination schedule should consult the CDC schedule for vaccine catch-ups, even if that means some kids will be getting their shots slightly later than would be ideal, said Dr. Alok Patel, a pediatric hospitalist at Stanford Children’s Health.

“I also have parents that prefer to space them out,” said Burgert, especially kids historically more reactive to the flu shot. “Parents are a little bit more hesitant to do both at the same time, just because they don’t want them to feel bad. And I understand that.”

Patel said he hears similar concerns: “A lot of parents say, ‘Hey, this is too many shots for my child to handle.'” But spacing out the vaccines, Patel added, is not without risk.

“The problem with spacing out the vaccines is you leave your child at risk to get the diseases while you’re spacing them out,” said Fisher, the pediatric infectious disease expert. “There’s no advantage. There’s no evidence that giving them at the same time increases the adverse events. And the disadvantage is you leave your child susceptible.”

According to Patel, parents should focus most on “getting their children the right protection, and getting them fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, but also making sure that they’re getting complete protection against the other major vaccine-preventable illnesses.”

Pediatricians are urging eligible patients to seek out COVID-19 vaccines as soon as possible — and to stay up to date on other routine vaccines.

“The last thing we want to do,” Patel told ABC News, “is see a resurgence of these preventable diseases because of lapses in coverage.”

Burgert also noted how children are eager to do their part.

“These kids have been living all of this stress with us,” Burgert said. “They have been living through it, and they want it to be over too. They want it to be over for their friends, and they want it to be over for their parents.”

Lauren Joseph, a student at Stanford Medical School, is a contributor to the ABC News Medical Unit. Dr. Tushar Garg and Dr. Jay Bhatt contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) — With winter closing in and coronavirus case rates creeping up once again, White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci is warning that the vaccines’ waning immunity combined with the highly transmissible delta variant will make for a “double whammy” that will impact “even the vaccinated people.”

“The somewhat unnerving aspect of it is that if you keep the level of dynamics of the virus in the community at a high level — obviously the people who are most most vulnerable are the unvaccinated — but when you have a virus as transmissible as delta, in the context of waning immunity, that dynamic is going to negatively impact even the vaccinated people. So it’s a double whammy,” Fauci said in a pretaped interview aired at the 2021 STAT Summit Tuesday afternoon.

“You’re going to see breakthrough infections, even more so than we see now among the vaccinated,” he added.

His grim prediction meets a chorus of alarm bells already being sounded about COVID’s renewed spread as more people head inside as the holidays approach, heralding a season of family gatherings.

The national reported average for new cases each day has surged to more than 80,000, according to federal data — the highest in nearly a month. Forty states are currently showing high transmission, and total hospitalizations have increased for the first time in nearly 10 weeks.

Combatting any impending viral onslaught this winter hinges on how many more sleeves roll up for more shots, Fauci said. It won’t only be important to persuade the roughly 60 million “recalcitrant” people who have yet to get their first dose, but also “how well we implement a booster program,” he said.

Fauci added that booster doses of the COVID vaccine may become the standard for a “full” vaccination.

It comes as a growing roster of states and local jurisdictions have pushed ahead of federal regulators’ timeline, electing to endorse the expansion of booster shots to all adults at least six months after their second Pfizer or Moderna shot.

Though Pfizer formally asked the Food and Drug Administration to expand their booster’s authorization last week, right now federal agencies only recommend the mRNA booster for people over the age of 65, have an underlying medical condition or are at high risk for exposure, at least six months after their second dose.

All Johnson & Johnson recipients over the age of 18, however, are eligible for a boost at least two months after receiving their first dose.

“I happen to believe as an immunologist and infectious disease person, that a third shot boost for an mRNA is likely — should be part of the actual standard regimen, where a booster isn’t a luxury; a booster isn’t an add on; and a booster is part of what the original regimen should be — so that when we look back on this, we’re going to see that boosters are essential for an optimal vaccine regimen,” Fauci said.

ABC News’ Arielle Mitropoulos contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — With COVID-19 infection rates steadily increasing across the country, a growing list of states are now moving ahead of federal authorization, to recommend booster shots for all residents 18 years or older, six months after receiving their second COVID vaccine dose.

Last week, Pfizer formally asked the Food and Drug Administration to allow all Americans over the age of 18 to be eligible for booster shots.

However, in recent weeks, leaders from seven states — Arkansas, California, Colorado, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and West Virginia — have moved to formally and informally endorse the expansion of booster shots to all adult residents who are at least six months out of their second Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.

At this time, booster shots are recommended by federal agencies for anyone over the age of 18 who has received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, two months after receiving their first dose. Moderna and Pfizer recipients are encouraged to get a booster shot six months after receiving their second dose, if they are over the age of 65, have an underlying medical condition or are at high risk for exposure.

Earlier this fall, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice was the first state legislator to call for all residents regardless of their age or status of underlying condition, to receive a booster.

“I think that is absolutely the message that I’ve been trying to get out to people,” Justice reiterated on Monday. “I absolutely believe that if you’re 18 years of age, you can get your booster shot.”

On Monday, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson adjusted state policy recommendations to green light boosters for adults, adding that the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations on boosters are “somewhat confusing and limiting.”

Two states — Colorado and New Mexico — which have seen significant increases in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations have gone as far as to sign executive orders, urging all fully vaccinated adults to get boosters once they meet the six- or two-month thresholds, given the high risk for exposure and transmission in those states.

“We want to ensure that Coloradans have every tool they need to protect themselves from this deadly virus and to help reduce the stress on our hospitals and health care workers,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis wrote.

The concerns over high transmission have also pushed other officials to pull the trigger on booster shots for all adults.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said on Monday that she is “strongly encouraging all New Yorkers who live or work in a high-risk setting to get the booster,” and in New York City, Health Commissioner Dr. Dave Chokshi, announced during a press conference on Monday that he is issuing a Commissioner’s Advisory to all health care providers to allow boosters for all adults.

Last week, in California, Health Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly also announced that he was encouraging residents to “absolutely” sign up to get a booster shot.

With winter holidays just weeks away, and millions of Americans expected to travel and gather with family members, some officials say the expansion of boosters is now more critical than ever.

“We think this is a big step we can take with the holidays coming up. We need as many people boosted as possible. It’s that simple,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said on Monday during a press conference.

Murphy signaled that he would likely formally support boosters for all adults, adding that “if you’re in doubt, get the darn booster.”

To date, more than 30 million people nationwide have received an additional dose of a COVID-19 vaccine since early August, according to federal data.

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(NEW YORK) — Several dozen New York City sanitation workers have been accused of submitting falsified vaccination cards to satisfy the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, and they’ve been suspended without pay, according to a city official.

The city’s Department of Investigation is looking into the allegations, with spokesperson Diane Struzzi adding: “DOI is aware of allegations involving the issuance of bogus vaccination cards and declines further comment.”

New York City’s Sanitation Department also is investigating the situation in coordination with the DOI, according to Sanitation Department spokesman Joshua Goodman.

“These are very concerning allegations and we take them very seriously,” Goodman said. “Getting vaccinated is important to public health, and we do not tolerate anyone faking something that is a requirement of city employment.”

Over 87% of the department’s roughly 10,000 employees are either fully or partially vaccinated, according to ABC New York station WABC-TV.

“Anyone found to have faked their vaccination will be suspended without pay,” Goodman added.

The employees allegedly submitted real CVS cards listing that they had received the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but, upon verifying, officials realized CVS hasn’t administered the J&J vaccine since May.

Employees allegedly lied about taking the J&J dosage because it was easier to fake receiving a single shot. The cards all came from the same CVS in southern Brooklyn but were distributed to multiple sanitation garages.

As of now, the accused sanitation workers are facing up to three works of suspension without pay.

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