Family doctor under suspicion: horror at possible vaccination fraud in Bavaria

He is said to have issued a vaccination certificate to hundreds of patients without actually vaccinating them - and even led some to believe that they were immunized.

Now the public prosecutor's office is investigating the family doctor from Swabia.

Wemding

- Rumors have been around in Wemding, a small town in the Swabian Donau-Ries, for a long time. Of cars with license plates from all over Germany that were parked in front of Dr. Gerhard Holst parked. For example, to pick up a sticker on the vaccination card there without actually having received the vaccination *? Several such anonymous reports have been received by the police since August. Now the authorities reacted. The practice was closed on official orders. And the public prosecutor's office is investigating the doctor.

Together with the police and the public prosecutor's office, District Administrator Stefan Rößle reported yesterday at a press conference on the state of affairs in the case, which is assuming "immense proportions". Several hundred people could be affected. On the one hand, opponents of vaccinations, who may have falsified vaccination certificates issued to the doctor. On the other hand, there are also patients of the family doctor who previously assumed they were vaccinated but may not have had the vaccine injected at all. For them, the district office has now reactivated a vaccination center, which was actually closed at the turn of the month, in order to use antibody tests to determine whether or not there is vaccination protection. As early as Monday, 132 affected people came to the Nördlinger vaccination center to be tested, as District Administrator Rößle explained.

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From forgery of documents to bodily harm - there are several offenses in the room

The suspicion against the doctor was confirmed after skeptical patients carried out antibody tests on their own after the rumors. According to the criminal police, it emerged that there was probably no vaccination protection. Last Wednesday, the doctor's office and home were searched by the police. In his practice there was a sign that read: "Closed due to illness." At the weekend, the district office published the doctor's name in consultation with the police. That is unusual, but in this case the protection of the population is to be rated higher than the personal rights of the individual, emphasized District Administrator Rößle. After all, among the supposedly vaccinated people were also people with serious previous illnesses for whom an infection could be fatal.The data protection officer subsequently confirmed the procedure, said Rößle.

Reports from those affected to Bayerischer Rundfunk suggest that Holst was very critical of the vaccination.

Patients reported that Holst had warned them that vaccination could die.

Still, he gave an injection, most of them in the buttocks, not in the arm.

Family doctor under suspicion: horror at possible vaccination fraud

According to the public prosecutor's office, there are several offenses in the room - from forgery of documents and violations of the Infection Protection Act to bodily harm. "We are still at the very beginning of the investigation," said Andreas Dobler from the Augsburg public prosecutor. Interrogations are currently being carried out and the secured practice documents are being viewed. The public prosecutor initially did not provide any information on whether people who believed they had been vaccinated subsequently fell ill or even died. Just as little to the question of whether those consequences have to be feared who may have had a false vaccination certificate issued by Holst. The investigators are now hoping for further information from affected patients.

There was a similar case in April in a vaccination center in the northern German district of Friesland.

There, a nurse is said to have drawn syringes with saline solution instead of vaccine.

Around 10,000 affected people are to be vaccinated there.