Man wanted a COVID booster before flying abroad. A Rite Aid pharmacist canceled his shot

Dan Berger woke up on Friday with some items left on his to-do list before catching an international flight to South America a few days later.

He’d scheduled a haircut and a COVID-19 booster appointment and planned to squeeze in some last-minute shopping. He’d be out of the country for three weeks, and his rheumatologist advised that he get another dose of the vaccine before leaving, since the protection from his latest shot was slated to wane.

The 41-year-old resident of Boise’s North End has psoriatic arthritis, which entails weekly, self-administered injections to manage his symptoms and prevent permanent joint damage.

On Friday morning, two hours before his scheduled vaccine appointment at the Rite Aid on Vista Avenue, Berger received an email saying his booking had been canceled. That’s odd, he thought; it must be a glitch.

Worried about not being able to get a booster before his trip, and knowing the pharmacy doesn’t offer shots on Saturday or Sunday, he hurriedly checked the store’s website for any other available appointments that day. He saw nine.

Berger went ahead and booked another appointment at the same location Friday afternoon, two hours later than the first. When he arrived at Rite Aid a few minutes early and checked in at the pharmacy’s counter, a pharmacist named Amy took down his name.

“And then she said, ‘I canceled your appointment,’” Berger told the Idaho Statesman by phone. “I told her, ‘Yeah but I rescheduled.’”

Pharmacist a ‘conscientious objector’

The pharmacist said she had canceled his initial appointment on purpose. She told Berger she wouldn’t be administering any COVID-19 vaccines but would be OK with giving him the flu shot.

“I’m like, ‘what do you mean?’” Berger said of the encounter.

After a brief back-and-forth, the pharmacist confirmed that she was a “conscientious objector,” someone who, according to the National Library of Medicine, objects to vaccination against contagious diseases based on religious, moral or philosophical reasons.

Berger said Amy told him she didn’t want to be held liable for what happens to people after getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

“I said OK, but it’s my decision to get one, and I’m choosing to get one,” he said.

He explained to her, to no avail, that he’s immunocompromised and would soon be traveling to another country. She told him she would call around to other Rite Aid locations in the Boise area and ask about availability. Berger then sat in the waiting area for 15-20 minutes before checking back in at the counter.

While he waited, he posted about the incident on Twitter, and it went viral.

Customer’s tweet seen more than 1 million times

When he went back to the counter, the pharmacist told him she wasn’t able to find any other Rite Aid stores that have the booster in stock. Berger said Amy told him, “They’re all expired.”

On Saturday evening, as his post about the encounter sailed past one million impressions on Twitter, he received a call from Ryan Thueson, the regional pharmacy manager for Rite Aid. Thueson told Berger that Amy, the pharmacist in question, rarely works in customer-facing roles because of incidents like this and had been filling in because the store is short-staffed.

He also told Berger that the company orders doses of the COVID-19 vaccine weekly, and if they were expired, he would know about it.

Thueson declined to answer questions or comment on the incident when reached by the Statesman. He forwarded the Statesman’s inquiry to the company’s corporate office. A Statesman reporter called the store Tuesday and asked for Amy, was told she was not available, and left a message that had not been returned by Wednesday afternoon.

Terri Hickey, director of public relations at Rite Aid, told the Statesman she would not answer questions by phone but would take them via email. Hickey then declined to answer emailed questions about how the incident occurred and whether the pharmacist, Amy, is still employed by Rite Aid.

Rite Aid: No comment on personnel matters

“As a matter of practice, we do not comment on individual personnel matters,” Hickey said in a statement. “We are committed to providing the COVID-19 vaccine to our customers to keep them protected. We are looking into this situation and will take the appropriate steps to ensure that our customers continue to receive the vaccinations they need when they want them.”

Berger did eventually get a booster shot that day, just not at Rite Aid. He got it at the Albertsons pharmacy on 16th and State streets, which he called a “great experience.”

He said the pharmacist who administered his vaccine at Albertsons, upon hearing about his encounter at Rite Aid, mentioned something called the “conscience clause.” According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, conscience rights are federal statutes that protect health care providers who refuse to perform or assist in certain health care services based on religious or moral grounds.

Berger said he believes Rite Aid would be within its rights to fire the pharmacist for refusing to administer the vaccine.

He pointed to a 2015 case in Pennsylvania where a federal judge ruled that Walgreens was within its rights to fire a pharmacist who had moral objections to administering flu vaccines. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported at the time that the pharmacist had sued Walgreens and testified he was “not allowed to work because of his conscience objection.” The judge said in his opinion that the claim was “legally deficient.”

Because of the encounter at Rite Aid on Friday, Berger said he’s planning to move his prescriptions to another pharmacy, perhaps at Albertsons.

He’s been a patron of another Rite Aid pharmacy, at 1515 W. State Street in Boise, for over two years. In December, he penned a letter to the company’s CEO that detailed some concerns he had about the pharmacy. He also shared some things he liked about the store, including its convenient downtown location.

“I like that store and pharmacy so much that I switched over from Walgreens,” Berger wrote in the letter, obtained by the Statesman. “Additionally, when the store was redesigned, I shared my happiness on social media.”

Customers wait in line: ‘Our last staff pharmacist just quit’

He wrote that constant staff shortages often force the pharmacy to close early, customers aren’t getting their prescriptions in a timely manner, the drive-thru has been closed for over a year, and pharmacy lines are usually five or more people deep, regardless of the time of day.

A photo he attached to the letter illustrated the scope of the situation. The photo showed a dry-erase board placed at the pharmacy’s counter that read, “Current wait time – 2 hours. Our last staff pharmacist just quit.” Another photo showed an entire aisle filled with customers waiting in line for the pharmacy.

“Please give (this store) the attention it deserves so that it can go back to normal operations,” Berger wrote.

He said he never received a reply. Hickey told the Statesman that Rite Aid, like the rest of the industry, continues to “manage through pharmacy labor shortages in some areas,” and is focused on recruiting.

A slew of locals supported Berger’s post about his vaccine appointment, but it also drew criticism. Some people hurled insults at Berger and called Amy a “hero.”

“There were people editing my photo to make me look like a ‘Karen,’” Berger said. “It’s funny because I’m not, like, a community organizer. I just want to get my medications on time, you know? I like to be up to date with my boosters. That’s it.”

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