Long Island Midwife Gave Pellets Instead of Vaccines to 1,500 Children

A Long Island midwife falsified vaccine records for some 1,500 school-aged children, according to New York State’s Department of Health, which on Wednesday announced that it had fined her $300,000.

The authorities said the scheme began at the start of the 2019-20 school year after a measles epidemic had led New York to end religious exemptions for immunizations. The new rules meant that about 26,000 children who had previously been exempted needed to get vaccinated to return to school that fall.

But instead of administering the required vaccines, the midwife, Jeanette Breen, of Baldwin, N.Y., gave thousands of homeopathic oral pellets to school-aged children and then falsified their immunization records, according to the authorities.

The oral pellets in question were marketed as an alternative to vaccination but were not authorized or approved by the federal government as a vaccine against any disease. Ms. Breen administered them as a substitute for vaccinations against hepatitis, diphtheria, polio, measles and other diseases, according to the authorities.

The children who received the pellets attend hundreds of different schools. The schools have been instructed to inform their parents that their children cannot return until they provide proof of vaccination, the authorities said.

While most of the children with falsified records were on Long Island, many were from New York City, and some were from other parts of the state, including Erie County.

“Misrepresenting or falsifying vaccine records puts lives in jeopardy and undermines the system that exists to protect public health,” the state health commissioner, Dr. James McDonald, said.

It was not immediately known if the scheme resulted in any illness or the spread of disease.

The Health Department said that Ms. Breen had already paid $150,000 of the $300,000 penalty, and that the remainder of the fine would be suspended if she abided by certain terms, including a prohibition on administering vaccines or participating in any schemes to misrepresent vaccination records.

Ms. Breen did not respond to messages requesting comment.

In a 2019 deposition, she said she had been running a midwifery practice in Baldwin for about 30 years and had graduated from Columbia University’s School of Nursing in 1984 with a master’s degree.

The deposition involved a case regarding whether a pregnant employee at a hospital should receive an exemption from a mandatory flu shot policy. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that pregnant women receive flu shots, but Ms. Breen expressed skepticism about their safety and benefits for pregnant women.

“Well, a doctor doesn’t always know best,” she said.