A Utah plastic surgeon issued COVID-19 vaccination cards to large numbers of patients who never received their shots, dumping the vaccines down the drain while telling the CDC the recipients had been properly inoculated, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday. Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, who operates the Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah, is charged along with two of his employees with conspiracy to defraud the United States, as well as two conspiracy counts for improper conversion of disposal of U.S. property—over the clinic’s waste of the viable vaccines. Moore, who prosecutors say was motivated by a political agenda, allegedly sold roughly 2,000 phantom shots, each for a $50 “donation.” He would then either forgo the injection altogether, or, for minors, administer a shot of saline, leaving the kids believing they had been vaccinated, the complaint states, noting that each patient was duly entered into statewide public health databases as having received the vaccine.
