A Wisconsin pharmacist convinced the world was “crashing down” told police he tried to ruin hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine because he believed the shots would mutate people’s DNA, according to court documents released on Monday.
Police in Grafton, about 32km (20 miles) north of Milwaukee, arrested Advocate Aurora Health pharmacist Steven Brandenburg last week following an investigation into the 57 spoiled vials of the Moderna vaccine, which officials say contained enough doses to inoculate more than 500 people. Charges are pending.
“He’d formed this belief they were unsafe,” Ozaukee County district attorney Adam Gerol said during a virtual hearing.
He added that Mr Brandenburg was upset because he and his wife are divorcing, and an Aurora employee said Mr Brandenburg had taken a gun to work twice.
A detective wrote in a probable cause statement that Mr Brandenburg (46) is an admitted conspiracy theorist and that he told investigators he intentionally tried to ruin the vaccine because it could hurt people by changing their DNA.
Experts have said there is no truth to the claims that the vaccines can genetically modify humans.
Advocate Aurora Health Care chief medical group officer Jeff Bahr has said Mr Brandenburg admitted that he deliberately removed the vials from refrigeration at the Grafton medical centre overnight on December 24th into December 25th, returned them, then left them out again on the night of December 25th into Saturday.
A pharmacy technician discovered the vials outside the refrigerator on December 26th.
Mr Bahr said Mr Brandenburg initially said he had removed the vials to access other items in the refrigerator and had inadvertently failed to put them back.
The Moderna vaccine is viable for 12 hours outside refrigeration, so workers used the vaccine to inoculate 57 people before discarding the rest.
Mr Bahr said the doses people received on December 26th are all but useless. But Mr Gerol said during the hearing that the vials were actually retained and Moderna would need to test the doses to make sure they were ineffective before he can file charges.
Mr Brandenburg’s attorney, Jason Baltz, did not speak on the merits of the case during the hearing. Mr Gerol held off on filing any charges, saying he still needs to determine whether Mr Brandenburg actually destroyed the doses.
Judge Paul Malloy ordered Mr Brandenburg to be released on a $10,000 (€8,145) signature bond, surrender his firearms, not work in health care and have no contact with Aurora employees.
Mr Brandenburg’s wife of eight years filed for divorce in June. The couple has two small children.
According to an affidavit his wife filed on December 30th, the same day Mr Brandenburg was arrested in the vaccine tampering, he stopped off at her house on December 6th and dropped off a water purifier and two 30-day supplies of food, telling her that the world was “crashing down” and she was in denial.
He said the government was planning cyberattacks and was going to shut down the power grid.
She added that he was storing food in bulk along with guns in rental units and she no longer felt safe around him.
A court commissioner on Monday found that Mr Brandenburg’s children were in imminent danger and temporarily prohibited them from staying with him. – AP