Story at a glance
- Steven Brandenburg, 46, was arrested last week after he allegedly removed 57 vials of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine from a pharmacy refrigerator and left them out overnight.
- The vaccine is viable for just 12 hours outside of refrigeration.
- A probable cause statement written by a Grafton police detective said Brandenburg told investigators he tried to ruin the vaccine because it could harm people by changing their DNA.
A Wisconsin pharmacist accused of intentionally trying to ruin hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine told authorities he did so because he believed the shots were unsafe and could change people’s DNA, according to The Associated Press.
Steven Brandenburg, 46, was arrested last week after he allegedly removed 57 vials of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine — enough doses to inoculate more than 500 people — from a pharmacy refrigerator at the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wis., where he worked and left them out overnight.
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The medical center said Brandenburg was fired after he admitted he deliberately removed the vials from refrigeration overnight on Dec. 24 into Dec. 25, returned them back to cold storage, then left them out again on the night of Dec. 25. The vials were discovered by a pharmacy technician on Dec. 26.
The vaccine is viable for just 12 hours outside of refrigeration.
“He’d formed this belief [the vaccines] were unsafe,” Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol said during a virtual hearing on Monday, according to AP.
A probable cause statement written by a Grafton police detective said Brandenburg told investigators he tried to ruin the vaccine because it could harm people by changing their DNA. The detective who wrote the statement called Brandenburg an “admitted conspiracy theorist.”
Brandenburg was initially charged on suspicion of recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug and criminal damage to property. Gerol said, however, it wasn’t immediately clear whether his actions ruined the doses or whether they could still be effectively administered and Moderna would have to examine the vaccines to make a determination. If doses were not destroyed, the charges could be downgraded.
Authorities said some people had received vaccine doses that had been removed from cold storage but don’t believe any of those people were at medical risk.
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