Sign up for the US Guardian Today newsletter
A Wisconsin pharmacist who was convinced the world was “falling apart” told police he had tried to destroy hundreds of doses of coronavirus vaccine because he believed the images would destroy human DNA. according to court documents released Monday.
Police in Grafton, about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, arrested Aurora Health Candidate pharmacist Steven Brandenburg last week after examining the 57 damaged filters of the Moderna vaccine, which officials say contained enough doses to protect more than 500 people. There are costs to come.
“He had created this belief that they were unsafe,” Ozaukee county attorney Adam Gerol said at a preamble. The prosecutor said Brandenburg was upset because he was in the middle of separating his wife, and an Aurora employee said Brandenburg gave him a gun to work twice.
A detective wrote in a statement a probable cause that Brandenburg, 46, is a confessed conspiracy theorist and told investigators that he tried to damage the vaccine because it could infect humans. hurt by altering their DNA.
False information surrounding the Covid-19 vaccines has surfaced online with false claims circulating everything from the ingredients of the vaccines to possible side effects.
One of the earliest false claims suggested that the vaccines could alter DNA. The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine as well as the Moderna vaccine rely on messenger RNA or mRNA, which is a relatively new technology used in vaccines that experts have been working on for years.
MRNA vaccines help train the immune system to identify the spike protein on the surface of the coronavirus and create an immune response. Experts have said there is no truth to the claims that vaccines can genetically modify humans.
Jeff Bahr, chief executive of medical group Aurora Healthcare, has said Brandenburg admitted that he deliberately removed the filters from an overnight cooling at Grafton medical center on Dec. 24 to Dec. 25. he sent them back, then left them out again on the night of December 25 into Saturday.
A pharmacy technician found the filters outside the refrigerator on December 26th.
Brandenburg’s lawyer, Jason Baltz, did not speak on the merits of the case during the hearing. Gerol refrained from filing any charges, saying he still needs to prove whether Brandenburg destroyed the doses.
Judge Paul Malloy ordered Brandenburg to hold on to a $ 10,000 signature bond on the condition that he surrender his firearms, not work in health care and have no connection with Aurora employees.
Brandenburg is going to divorce his eight-year-old wife. The couple has two children.
According to a written testimony submitted by Brandenburg’s wife, he visited her on December 6 and dropped a water purifier and two 30-day food supplies, telling her that the world was “falling apart”.
It was also said that the government was planning cyber attacks and was going to shut down the power grid.
She said he stored food mostly with guns in rental units and she no longer felt safe around him.