Pharmacist Accused of Tampering With Vaccine Was Conspiracy Theorist, Police Say

[Richard D]

Source: New York Times

A pharmacist who was arrested on charges that he intentionally sabotaged more than 500 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine at a Wisconsin hospital was “an admitted conspiracy theorist” who believed the vaccine could harm people and “change their DNA,” according to the police in Grafton, Wis., where the man was employed.

The police said Steven Brandenburg, 46, who worked the night shift at the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wis., had twice removed a box of vials of the Moderna vaccine from the refrigerator for periods of 12 hours, rendering them “useless.”

“Brandenburg admitted to doing this intentionally, knowing that it would diminish the effects of the vaccine,” the police said.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/us/pharmacist-accused-of-tampering-with-vaccine-was-conspiracy-theorist-police-say.html

[JohnnyRingo]

1. Graduated from the DJ Trump College Of Pharmacology.

With a minor in UFOs and Yetis.

He deserves to have the good life he enjoyed ruined.

[Miigwech]

42. Hahahahaaaaaaa.

[dawg day]

2. The Nashville bomber too-

They both seemed to believe Q conspiracy theories.

[Hoyt]

3. Will be interesting to see if they can impanel a jury without a few

vaccine doubters.

On CNN or MSNBC yesterday they had a hospital where half the workers were choosing to wait awhile before taking vaccine.

[Grokenstein]

9. Crap like this is why they want to wait.

With Trumpublicans in charge and encouraging each other to cause havoc--not to mention the recent news about them wanting to "water down" the doses--everyone should tread carefully.

The only way any of the past four years make any sense is if you accept that the GOP wants to kill as many Americans as possible.

[SergeStorms]

20. I'll take their place in line...

if they don't want to risk changing into a lizard-person. People are dying in record numbers, and these jackasses are too timid to get a vaccination that could, no WILL, save their miserable lives! I'll gladly roll up my sleeve and take the vaccine earmarked for them.

[moriah]

30. A friend whose daughter has cystic fibrosis was able to get the shot...

... when he didn't expect to get it. He's a state employee working for the state's mental hospital, but not at all involved in patient care or on any ward often -- he's a computer tech.

He said that the had "extra" and needed to use it, and they'd seen he'd said he had a family member with serious respiratory issues.

So I don't know if the employees they'd planned to vaccinate refused, or if they really did have a little extra, enough to make sure he can safely go on any ward on the campus (I think the state mental hospital, our state's children's hospital, and the medical school/attached hospital are all part of the same state agency, so may use the same computer systems).

But I'm surprised more janitorial staff/CNAs/mental health techs hadn't jumped at the idea of a vaccine -- I would have thought if there had been refusals from anybody, shots would have at least gotten to the people who empty the trash on COVID wards before a tech who is rarely near patients.

Perhaps they did have enough and wanted one guy they knew they could send anywhere, tho.

[Hestia]

36. It was so nice working for a University Health System each flu season, they show up at your desk

tell you to roll up your sleeve for the IM. These were tuff RN's, so you just obeyed. If you refused, you were turned over to your supervisor and up the chain of command. System had no out for vaccine refusal - you worked with the hospital system and could not make a frivolous reason for not accepting it. Of course, medical reasons were already noted, so you were skipped.

[LovingA2andMI]

4. He Should Have LEFT his JOB!

One might not agree w/ the mRNA vaccine HOWEVER if you have a ethical obligation to distribute the vaccine either do it or leave your f**king job. Period!

[lutherj]

7. Conspiracy Theories. The other pandemic. N/t

[rpannier]

16. Yep

from the article:

According to an affidavit his wife filed on Dec. 30, the same day Brandenburg was arrested in the vaccine tampering, he stopped off at her house on Dec. 6 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 Brandenburg’s children were in imminent danger and temporarily prohibited them from staying with him.

[ancianita]

23. There are millions like him, too.

[DanieRains]

28. Drooling Zombies With Their Heads Full Of The Crap / Lies They Read And Hear On The Old Internet

There must be a lot of money in turning stupid people into psycho-zombie/morons with websites, twitter, and facebook.

[sybylla]

40. And yet the judge gave him a tiny signature bond to get out.

How long before this conspiracy-demented guy who can't see his kids and soon-to-be-ex does something drastic.

There is so much WTF here.

[badboy67]

8. I expected the excuse to be a religious one..

"Conscientious objector," "religious liberty," etc.

[Delphinus]

34. Me too!

My stepdaughter is also wondering if she should get the shot - exactly because of the changed DNA. I sent her a story from the health experts in Minnesota but wonder if she will take the time to read it.

[KT2000]

10. Alternate reality fool

who cannot escape his conspiracies to even keep himself out of prison.

[TlalocW]

11. Now he's messing with Dolly!

That ain't right.

TlalocW

[eggplant]

12. They need to pull his license FIRST, and then consider prosecuting.

Don't want to risk an acquittal leading to keeping his credentials.

[rpannier]

15. Agree. Pull his license for certain

According to the article, they are delaying charging him because they aren't certain what damage he caused.

per article:
But Gerol said during the hearing that the vials were actually retained and Moderna would need to test the doses to make sure they’re ineffective before he can file charges.
Gerol held off on filing any charges, saying he still needs to determine whether Brandenburg actually destroyed the doses.

So you are 100% correct on charges coming later

It says he has been released on bond. If I were supposed to get a shot and couldn't, I'd beat him smart (cuz he couldn't get much stupider)

[thenelm1]

17. Yes. Tampering with the drugs you're supposed to dispense should be immediate grounds for...

yanking his license and an end to his career as a pharmacist. He should never be trusted again with dispensing any pharmaceuticals of any kind, ever. This is way worse than refusing to fill a prescription based on based on some religious or philosophical belief. This is actually tampering with potentially life-saving medication. This ass should not be allowed that responsibility ever again, and suffer any legal consequences that that might entail.

[DENVERPOPS]

18. Agree

Talk about flushing 6-8 demanding years of study..........

[eggplant]

37. pulling his license won't require proving he actually caused damage IMO

intent and action should be enough. certainly nobody can trust those vials at this point.

[LudwigPastorius]

13. Maybe a he'll find a QAnon prison gang to protect him when he gets sent inside.

"The Blithering Brotherhood"

[SergeStorms]

21. They'll be easy to spot.

They're the ones lying on slabs in the morgue because they believed the vaccine would turn them into lizard-people. They bet their lives on a stupid conspiracy theory, and not a very good one at that.

[ancianita]

24. Sad thing about them is that they could've survived by doing a little actual reading up on it.

That this pharmacist wouldn't read was colossally bad judgment.

quick google:
the mRNA vaccine does not contain a live virus and ... the nucleus of the cell and does not affect or interact with a person's DNA. ... misinformation about how mRNA vaccines alter or modify someone's DNA

from Reuters
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-viral-post/fact-check-covid-19-vaccines-wont-alter-recipient-dna-frontline-workers-have-suffered-directly-from-the-virus-idUSKBN28S2V1

[SergeStorms]

29. There's far too many....

polysyllabic words in those fact checks for these right-wingnuts. It's a known fact that the truth is much more difficult to understand than lies and simple conspiracy theories. It's much easier to believe in lizard-people than scientific evidence. Dumb Americans always seek the path of least resistance.

[rpannier]

14. Horsewhipping comes to mind

Followed by the stocks, so everyone can see this moron

[TeamPooka]

19. he can practice his conspiracy theories in prison.

[Aussie105]

22. "change their DNA" ??

Well sure!
The vaccine changes the DNA of specific cells of the immune system so that they produce antibodies against the virus.
Antibodies are proteins produced by cells, their amino acid sequence - and hence their 3D shape - is encoded in RNA, which in turn gets it's information from DNA.
It's the 3D shape of the antibodies that detect and adhere to virus surface proteins, thus stopping them from invading cells as well as marking the tagged virus particles for cleanup by other immune system cells.
No other cells are affected.

But without this "change in DNA" any vaccine would not work.

Me thinks Mr Pharmacist is a dum-dum!

Of course, “change their DNA,” tends to imply mind control or zombie-ism. Or inducing lizard-people metamorphosis. Or something.

[ancianita]

25. Considering most Americans -- 66% - 75% -- have little to no education beyond hs, they can

miss a sympathy for reading up on what they were only introduced to in their first 12 years.
So they tend not to know what you know.

This mentality and lack of practiced, learned judgment won't go away, either, when confronted by other public problems solved by the sciences and engineering.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

31. No. Actually the vaccine does NOT change the DNA. You wrongly characterize it.

You have stated the process well but glide over the key point. The vaccine triggers a change in highly localized DNA exactly in the same way the virus does, but the vaccine does not change the DNA.

Triggering a change is greatly different from actually changing something. Indirect versus direct. And it is localized to B lymphocyte immune cells (as you mention).

The vaccine does not change the DNA. It does trigger an immune response that causes a DNA change only in a small subset of a specific immune cell the same way the virus does. Those immune cells (B cells) are always changing their DNA naturally. The virus and the vaccine do not touch even that DNA

The virus changes the cells. It does this two ways.

1) Catastrophically invading and taking over a cell's mechanism to replicate the viral RNA.

2) Stimulating B lymphocytes to undergo hypermutation of only their own DNA to produce antibodies.

The Covid vaccines do not mess with the cell's DNA. The mRNA instructs the cell directly to produce PROTEINS that mimic the virus and go to the surface of the cell where B lymphocytes can recognize the protein as foreign and start producing antibodies.

Your normal DNA is untouched.

[mr_lebowski]

43. Well said my friend (nt)

[Bernardo de La Paz]

32. Stating it your way is destructive because it raises needless fears & misrepresents the process.

See my post above.

[Judi Lynn]

26. AP: Prosecutor: Wisconsin pharmacist thought vaccine was unsafe

By TODD RICHMOND
today




MADISON, Wis. (AP) — 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 Monday.

Police in Grafton, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) 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 Brandenburg was upset because he and his wife are divorcing, and an Aurora employee said Brandenburg had taken a gun to work twice.

. . .

Online court records indicate Brandenburg’s divorce attorney withdrew from the case on Dec. 28.

More:
https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-pharmacist-steven-brandenburg-ac00faee3cf10a9558665d472123b96c

[sybylla]

41. What is wrong with this judge?

"...Judge Paul Malloy ordered Brandenburg to be released on a $10,000 signature bond, surrender his firearms, not work in health care and have no contact with Aurora employees.
...
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 Brandenburg’s children were in imminent danger and temporarily prohibited them from staying with him....."

Give a guy chocked full of conspiracy theories with a chemistry major and 2 really bad weeks a $10000 bond and let him go? WTAF? If I were his wife and kids, I'd be disappearing in a hurry.

[DanieRains]

27. Give Him 10 Years For Being A Whack Job

And another 10 years for destroying life saving vaccines.

[orangecrush]

35. JAIL TIME PLEASE

Set an example for other idiots who shouldn't be allowed near a hospital, let alone work in one.

[NCjack]

38. Seeking Pharmacist Steven Brandenburg: Urgent. Please report

to COS Mr. Mark Meadows, White House, Washington, DC. Your interview for employment will be scheduled on Pres. Trump rocket calendar. You are advised to appear ready for immediate employment the White House's Pharmacy, assigned to the new Alternative Injection and Oral Swallowing Stuff to replace Mask Technology that is being launched by the White House.

[Paladin]

39. His pharmacy career is clearly over, but that's not nearly enough punishment.

I want to see a long, long prison term imposed on this loony piece of shit. Me and my loved ones are waiting for vaccinations, and we don't need delusional fuckwits slowing the process down any further than trump has, already.