The New York State Department fined licensed midwife Jeanette Breen $300,000 for falsifying vaccine records, after giving 1,500 children unapproved homeopathic pellets.
The department said Breen, who holds a master's degree in nursing from Columbia University, pulled her dangerous stunt in 2019 when the state put an end to religious exemptions for immunizations following a measles outbreak. She gave the useless oral pellets to school-age children and falsified their records, claiming the kids had been vaccinated against measles, hepatitis, diphtheria, polio, and other infectious diseases. According to Newsday, Breen "administered about 12,449 fake immunizations before the state cut off her access to the system in December 2022."
Authorities said many of the parents were in on ruse. "The scheme suggests that the persons in parental relation to the affected children sought out and paid Breen related to their children's immunizations," a spokeswoman for the Health Department, Erin Clary, told The New York Times.
