Family visits Walgreens for their young kids' flu shots — but Walgreens give kids full doses of COVID vaccines instead: Report

Two Indiana parents say that they visited their local Walgreens pharmacy last week to get flu shots for themselves and for their 4- and 5-year-old children — but their kids ended up receiving full adult doses of a COVID-19 vaccine instead.

What are the details?

Alexandra and John Price took their children for flu shots at an Evansville-area Walgreens and believed nothing had gone wrong.

When the family arrived home, however, they were greeted with a phone call from the pharmacy notifying them that they — and their children — were mistakenly given the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, which is not yet authorized for children under the age of 12 years.

According to a report from the Evansville Courier & Press, the Prices rushed their kids to a pediatric cardiologist to see if the vaccine was causing adverse effects.

The doctor told the worried couple that their daughter was experiencing high blood pressure, and their son, tachycardia.

"You hope it's just the stress from being at the doctor's office and unfamiliar response, but at the same time you're like, 'What if it's not?'" Alexandra said. "You worry constantly. They've been sleeping in our bed in our room since Monday night of last week, so we can keep an eye on them, and it's just — no one knows what to expect because there's not a lot out there to help us."

A spokesperson for Walgreens told the outlet that they are working to ensure this type of incident doesn't happen again.

"Patient safety is our top priority, and due to privacy laws, we cannot comment on specific patient events," the spokesperson said. "But generally speaking, such instances are rare and Walgreens takes these matters very seriously. In the event of any error, our first concern is always our patients' well-being. Our multi-step vaccination procedure includes several safety checks to minimize the chance of human error and we have reviewed this process with our pharmacy staff in order to prevent such occurrences."

The parents now say they have hired a personal injury attorney in connection with the incident.

Lawyer Daniel Tuley, according to the report, has yet to file a suit on the Price family's behalf.

The outlet added that as of Monday, the Prices said that their son has been "sick with a fever and a cough." Their daughter has also reportedly developed a fever.

Both children have follow-up doctor's appointments this week.