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MADISON, Wisconsin (AP) – A Wisconsin pharmacist convinced the world is ‘falling apart’ told police he tried to ruin hundreds of doses of the coronavirus vaccine because he believed the injections would do mutate people’s DNA, according to court documents released Monday.
Police in Grafton, about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, arrested Aurora Health attorney 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 had formed this belief that they were not safe,” Ozaukee County District Attorney Adam Gerol said in a virtual hearing. He added that Brandenburg was upset because he was in the process of divorcing his wife, and an Aurora employee said Brandenburg had taken a gun to work twice.
A detective wrote in a probable cause statement that Brandenburg, 46, is a recognized conspiracy theorist and told investigators he intentionally tried to ruin the vaccine because it could hurt people by modifying their DNA.
Misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines has surged online with false claims circulating on everything from vaccine ingredients to its possible side effects.
One of the first false claims suggested that vaccines could alter DNA. The Pfizer vaccine and BioNTech as well as the Moderna vaccine rely on messenger RNA or mRNA, a relatively new technology used in vaccines that experts have been working on for years. MNA vaccines help train the immune system to identify the spike protein on the surface of the coronavirus and create an immune response. Experts said there was no truth to the claims that vaccines can genetically modify humans.
Aurora Health Care lawyer medical group chief Jeff Bahr said Brandenburg admitted to deliberately removing the vials from the refrigeration at Grafton Medical Center overnight December 24-25, turning them over and then turning them over. to have left again in the night of December. 25 to Saturday.
A pharmacy technician discovered the vials outside the refrigerator on December 26. Bahr said Brandenburg initially said he removed the vials to access other items in the fridge and failed to inadvertently put them back. Moderna vaccine is viable for 12 hours outside of refrigeration, so workers used the vaccine to inoculate 57 people before throwing the rest away. Police said the rejected doses were worth between $ 8,000 and $ 11,000.
Bahr said the doses people received on December 26 were virtually unnecessary. But Gerol said at the hearing the vials were in fact being kept and Moderna would have to test the doses to make sure they are ineffective before they can lay charges.
Brandenburg lawyer Jason Baltz did not speak to the substance of the case at the hearing. Gerol has delayed filing the charges, saying he has yet to determine whether Brandenburg actually destroyed the doses.
Judge Paul Malloy ordered Brandenburg to be held on $ 10,000 bail on the condition that he surrender his firearms, not work in health care, and have no contact with Aurora employees.
Brandenburg has been in the process of divorcing his wife for eight years. The couple have two small children.
According to an affidavit his wife filed on December 30, the same day Brandenburg was arrested for tampering with the vaccine, he stopped by her house on December 6 and dropped off a water purifier and two 30-day supplies. of food, telling her the world was “falling apart” and that she was in denial. He said the government was planning cyber attacks and was going to shut down the power grid.
She added that he stored bulk food with guns in rental units and she no longer felt safe around him. A court commissioner on Monday found the children of Brandenburg to be in imminent danger and temporarily banned them from staying with him.
Online court records show that the Brandenburg divorce lawyer withdrew from the case on December 28.
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Associated Press editor Doug Glass of Minneapolis contributed to this report.
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