A midwife from Long Island has been hit with a $300,000 fine, accused by the New York State Department of Health of writing up false vaccination records for hundreds of children. News 12 Long Island reports that the inoculation scheme run by Jeanette Breen began in 2019, via her Baldwin Midwifery, with Breen giving kids oral homeopathic pellets instead of vaccines, then filling out paperwork indicating her young patients had been vaccinated. The New York Times notes the pellets didn't have the green light from either the federal government or New York state to be used as a vaccination of any sort, even though Breen offered them to fend off a variety of diseases, including measles, mumps, polio, and flu.
Breen is also accused by the state DOH of claiming she gave a booster for tetanus, diptheria, and whooping cough more than 400 times, but actually didn't, per Newsday. The COVID vaccine was apparently not part of the scheme, which started after New York state nixed religious exemptions for vaccinations following a measles outbreak. The children involved mainly hailed from Long Island, but there were also kids under Breen's care from New York City and as far away as Erie County, in Western New York. An NYU bioethics instructor says the fact that Breen worked with children all over the state points to an underground word-of-mouth system in the anti-vax community, often through closed social-media groups.
"People don't show up from 300 schools out of the blue," Arthur Caplan notes. He adds that alternative treatments like the ones Breen offered aren't always safe—they can cause allergic reactions, for one—and that unvaccinated children can put other people around them at risk. "Misrepresenting or falsifying vaccine records puts lives in jeopardy and undermines the system that exists to protect public health," state Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald says in a statement.
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"Ms. Breen has provided excellent midwifery services for many years to many families," her attorney says, per Newsday, adding that his client is cooperating with the state DOH and "intends to comply" with any parameters it sets for her. Breen is said to have already paid $150,000 of the fine, and the state has agreed to waive the rest if she meets certain conditions, including not administering any vaccines. As for the kids who were "vaccinated" by Breen, their records have been voided and they must now receive proper vaccinations before they can return to school, per the state DOH. More here on Breen's past, which includes a previous two-year stayed suspension for "failing to maintain accurate patient records." (More Long Island stories.)
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