MILWAUKEE – A state council on Wednesday suspended the license of a Wisconsin pharmacist accused of destroying more than 500 doses of Covid-19 vaccine because he thought it was unsafe.
Steven Brandenburg was working for attorney Aurora Health in Grafton, about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, when he was arrested last month after an investigation into the 57 spoiled bottles of the Moderna vaccine. He was not criminally charged. A status conference in the case is scheduled for Tuesday.
The Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board said in its order that Brandenburg could not operate pharmacies while the suspension was in place. Brandenburg is said to have agreed to the action “to focus” on possible charges against him.
Brandenburg’s attorney, Jason Baltz, did not immediately respond to a phone message left by The Associated Press Wednesday night.
Aurora Health Care Attorney Chief Medical Officer Jeff Bahr said Brandenburg admitted that he deliberately removed the vials from the refrigerator at Grafton Medical Center.
A detective writes in a probable cause that Brandenburg (46) is a licensed conspiracy theorist and that he told investigators that he wanted to deliberately destroy the vaccine because it could hurt people by altering their DNA.
Incorrect information about the Covid-19 vaccines increased rapidly with false claims spreading the ingredients of the vaccines and possible side effects.
One of the earliest false claims suggests that the vaccines may alter the DNA. The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine as well as the Moderna vaccine are dependent on messenger RNA or mRNA, which is a fairly new technology used in vaccines that experts have been working on for years.
MRNA vaccinations help train the immune system to identify the vein protein on the surface of the coronavirus and create an immune response. Experts said there was no truth in the claims that the vaccines could genetically alter humans.