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A pharmacist who allegedly told a patient “people in power are trying to control us through the Covid vaccine” and the vaccination alters DNA has been warned by the General Pharmaceutical Council.

A fitness to practise committee hearing heard Tue Johansen struck up a conversation about the Covid vaccine with the patient when she came to Baden House Pharmacy in Cornwall to ask for a repeat prescription to treat an oral fungal infection on January 26, 2024.

The patient told the hearing that Johansen said he was unable to give her the repeat prescription and advised her to speak to her GP before suggesting that a health food store in Penzance may be able to provide a product to help her.

The patient told the hearing that Johansen asked her if she had been vaccinated against Covid and, although she could not remember the exact words he used, said he aired the opinion “the government used this method to control us”.

The committee also heard that Johansen told the patient “people in power are trying to control us through the Covid vaccine”, which he denied. The patient said Johansen “was never aggressive in his manner” towards her but advised her “that this was his opinion”.

The committee also heard he used the words “around 30 per cent of DNA has been altered through vaccinations” or “words to the same effect”.

In her complaint to the GPhC on January 30, 2024, the patient said Johansen told her “only about 30 per cent to 40 per cent of our bodies were made up of human DNA and the rest was introduced bacteria and harmful stuff”.

He told the committee he had read an article about a study which found DNA could transfer to liver cells and came across information that “mRNA”, part of Pfizer’s Covid vaccine, was incorporated in a human liver cell and could cause inflammation or “trouble for the cell”.

Johansen insisted he did not express this “in those terms” to the patient but did mention “DNA” and “MRNA” to her and admitted he showed concern about the vaccine during their conversation.

He insisted he did not say 30 per cent of DNA is altered through vaccinations and had “no knowledge of 30 per cent being incorporated from other sources”.

In its report on the hearing, the committee said: “It was agreed between the parties that there had been some discussion about DNA and about vaccinations causing alterations of some sort to cells.”

Johansen said the patient may not have understood what he said about DNA and MRNA because his comments were “technical in nature”.

Conceding he should not have said it, he was quoted by the report as saying: “I do not have a good answer why I told her, something in me was concerned. I should never have done it, I know that now…I am so in the wrong.

“I had a lovely encounter with her. She was not alarmed. I was way out of line and admit that. I shared my concern with her and so shouldn’t have done. I can’t remember how I did that…I accept I did not present vaccination as safe and effective. It confused me too and I’m sorry.”

The report added: “(Johansen) was mindful that he was Danish and there were cultural differences such that sometimes what he said did not come across in the way that it was intended. He realised he had a directness which ‘could put some people out of kilter.’”

Very empowering and insightful

The committee heard Johansen contacted the superintendent at the pharmacy “to discuss the best way forward and the subsequent changes that needed to happen in his conduct with patients”.

They agreed the superintendent would supervise all his “encounters where patients asked for help regarding vaccinations”. Johansen made a note of the encounters and discussed them with the superintendent at the end of each month, which he said had been a “very empowering and insightful task” allowing him to be “more conscious and considerate” in his interactions.

Johansen also assured the committee he would not share information with patients that was not available on the NHS website or at GP surgeries.

Ruling he had breached four standards covering person-centred care, effective communication, using professional judgement and behaving in a professional manner, the committee issued Johansen with a warning which will be published in the register for 12 months.