![\"Reuters](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/b676\/live\/5b2aacf0-5fb8-11f0-a0d9-9133dc2e145c.jpg.webp\")
Reuters<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe US attorney general has ordered charges to be dropped against a doctor accused of destroying Covid-19 vaccines worth $28,000 (\u00a320,742), distributing fake vaccination record cards, and giving children saline shots instead of the vaccine at their parents’ request.<\/p>\n Pam Bondi said Dr Michael Kirk Moore Jr. “gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so”. He had been indicted by the Justice Department under the Biden administration in 2023.<\/p>\n The plastic surgeon was already on trial in Utah, where he had pleaded not guilty to all charges including conspiracy to defraud the US.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The acting US Attorney for the district of Utah, Felice John Viti, filed to dismiss the charges on Saturday, saying this was “in the interests of justice”.<\/p>\n Dr Moore was accused of providing fraudulently completed vaccination certificates for more than 1,900 vaccine doses, the US Attorney’s office in Utah said in 2023.<\/a><\/p>\n These were allegedly provided, without administering the vaccine, for a charge of $50 (\u00a337), in exchange for direct cash payments or donations to a specific charity.<\/p>\n The government also accused him of giving children saline shots at their parents’ request so that the “children would think they were receiving a COVID-19 vaccine,” according to the US attorney’s office.<\/p>\n He was accused alongside his company – Plastic Surgery Institute of Utah, Inc. – and three others of seeking to defraud the US and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Bondi wrote on X<\/a> on Saturday that she had ordered the Justice Department to drop the charges because Dr Moore “did not deserve the years in prison he was facing”.<\/p>\n She said US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and Senator Mike Lee, both Republicans, had brought the case to her attention, calling them champions for “ending the weaponization of government”.<\/p>\n Lee thanked the attorney general for “standing with the countless Americans who endured too many official lies, mandates, and lockdowns during COVID”.<\/p>\n Dr Moore and other defendants faced up to 35 years in prison on multiple charges, according to the Associated Press news agency.<\/p>\n The current US Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., ran a group for eight years, Children’s Health Defense, that repeatedly questioned the safety and efficacy of vaccination<\/a>. <\/p>\n Kennedy has in the last year repeatedly said he is not “anti-vax” and will not be “taking away anybody’s vaccines”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n