A Wisconsin pharmacist has admitted that he tried to destroy hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccines because he mistakenly believed they were dangerous.
Steven (46), Steven Brandenburg, faces up to 10 years in prison after agreeing to plead guilty to two counts of attempting to tamper with consumer products with reckless disregard for the risk of another person at risk of death or bodily injury will be placed. The plea agreement was announced on Tuesday.
“Tampering with vaccine doses in the midst of a global health crisis calls for a strong response, as reflected by the serious charges brought by the United States today,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton of the Department of Justice’s civil division said in a news release. release.
Brandenburg spent two nights on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day as a hospital pharmacist in Grafton, north of Milwaukee, taking a box of Moderna vaccines out of a freezer for several hours to try to spoil them.
On December 26, about 57 people received doses of the specific vaccinations.
Prosecutors said they were still trying to determine if the people had received ineffective or harmful vaccines as a result of Brandenburg’s actions.
Brandenburg acknowledged in his plea agreement that he was a conspiracy theorist and that he was “skeptical about vaccines in general and the Modern COVID-19 vaccine in particular.”
The Grafton police station had earlier said the pharmacist had falsely believed that the vaccine could alter people’s DNA – which it could not.
COVID-19 vaccines, including Moderna’s, have been carefully tested for safety and approved by the Food and Drug Administration. More than 23.5 million doses of vaccinations have been given in the US since Tuesday.
“The spread of the COVID-19 vaccine is crucial to overcoming this pandemic, which is still ending the lives of our economy,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew D. Krueger. “As these charges show, the Department of Justice will prosecute anyone – and especially any medical professional – who is harassing the vaccine.”