PENNSYLVANIA, USA — When the pharmacists at The Medicine Shoppe in Bloomsburg receive shipments of the Moderna vaccine, they come in vials of 10 doses.
But often, the vials contain extra medicine, and you can get one or two 'bonus doses' out of there.
"Every drop counts. It really is like liquid gold," said Jennifer Seltzer, a pharmacist at the Medicine Shoppe.
But federal guidance on whether or not you should use those extra doses is mixed.
The FDA says it's OK for Moderna's vaccine but not Pfizer's, and the CDC says it should never be done at all.
Ty Williams, the Administrator at Susquehanna Valley Medical Specialties near Bloomsburg, guesses that's for logistical reasons.
"When we go on to report when we received doses for reporting we received for example 200 and if we give 203 or four or five vaccinations, the system kind of gets out of whack, you know, so being able to report bonus doses is something that should probably be put on those sites so that it's easier to do that," said Williams.
According to the providers we talked to, the PA Department of Health says it's OK to use those extra shots from one vial, but what you're not supposed to do is take whatever's left of one vial and whatever's left of another vial and combine them - a practice called pooling.
"There is definitely a risk that you're going to contaminate that dose by too many needle sticks in those vials," said Selzter.
But Dr. Lori Masteller, a physician at Susquehanna Valley Medical Specialities, says the risk of contamination is low, so if the FDA and CDC came out and said it was okay, she thinks most providers would hop on board.
"I think most of us feel that it's sort of a theoretical thing if there's a potential for harm, we don't want to do that, but if we were told that there was no potential harm, I think we would all step up to doing that," said Dr. Masteller.
Both providers agree, if the CDC changed its guidance to allow providers to use the extra drops of 'liquid gold' at the bottom of some of these vials, our vaccine supply would increase nationwide.
"I think that it would be a huge increase. There's definitely a lot of providers giving this vaccine, and if you add all of those extra doses up, that could be quite significant," Seltzer says.
Dr. Masteller says, "It's hard to know what the true percentage would be because some vials do have extra and some do not, but I think from an ethical standpoint, we should try to do that if we can."