diff --git a/prime-router/src/main/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRFunctions.kt b/prime-router/src/main/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRFunctions.kt
index cd3e59e2d3d..8d10d783e17 100644
--- a/prime-router/src/main/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRFunctions.kt
+++ b/prime-router/src/main/kotlin/fhirengine/azure/FHIRFunctions.kt
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ import gov.cdc.prime.router.report.ReportService
 import org.apache.commons.lang3.StringUtils
 import org.apache.logging.log4j.kotlin.Logging
 import org.jooq.exception.DataAccessException
+import java.util.Base64
 
 class FHIRFunctions(
     private val workflowEngine: WorkflowEngine = WorkflowEngine(),
@@ -204,7 +205,7 @@ class FHIRFunctions(
         } catch (ex: SubmissionSenderNotFound) {
             // This is a specific error case that can occur while handling a report via the new Submission service
             // In a situation that the sender is not found there is not enough information to record a report event
-            // and we want a poison queue message to be immediately added so that the configuration can be fixed
+            // so, we want a poison queue message to be immediately added so that the configuration can be fixed
             logger.error(ex)
             val tableEntity = Submission(
                 ex.reportId.toString(),
@@ -220,7 +221,8 @@ class FHIRFunctions(
             // that will not be resolved if the message is automatically retried
             // Instead, the error is recorded as an event and message is manually inserted into the poison queue
             val report = databaseAccess.fetchReportFile(messageContent.reportId)
-            val poisonQueueMessageId = queueAccess.sendMessage("${messageContent.messageQueueName}-poison", message)
+            val encodedMsg = Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(message.toByteArray())
+            val poisonQueueMessageId = queueAccess.sendMessage("${messageContent.messageQueueName}-poison", encodedMsg)
             fhirEngine.reportEventService.sendReportProcessingError(
                 ReportStreamEventName.PIPELINE_EXCEPTION,
                 report,
diff --git a/prime-router/src/test/kotlin/azure/FHIRFunctionsTests.kt b/prime-router/src/test/kotlin/azure/FHIRFunctionsTests.kt
index 6ccd26f0852..a7b7986874c 100644
--- a/prime-router/src/test/kotlin/azure/FHIRFunctionsTests.kt
+++ b/prime-router/src/test/kotlin/azure/FHIRFunctionsTests.kt
@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ import org.jooq.tools.jdbc.MockResult
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.BeforeEach
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test
 import org.junit.jupiter.api.assertThrows
+import java.util.Base64
 import java.util.UUID
 
 class FHIRFunctionsTests {
@@ -98,7 +99,7 @@ class FHIRFunctionsTests {
         verify(exactly = 1) {
             QueueAccess.sendMessage(
                 "${QueueMessage.elrConvertQueueName}-poison",
-                queueMessage
+                Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(queueMessage.toByteArray())
             )
             mockReportEventService.sendReportProcessingError(
                 ReportStreamEventName.PIPELINE_EXCEPTION,
@@ -124,7 +125,7 @@ class FHIRFunctionsTests {
         verify(exactly = 0) {
             QueueAccess.sendMessage(
                 "${QueueMessage.elrConvertQueueName}-poison",
-                queueMessage
+                Base64.getEncoder().encodeToString(queueMessage.toByteArray())
             )
         }
     }