A former Wisconsin hospital pharmacist was sentenced to three years in prison on Tuesday for attempting to spoil hundreds of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, the Justice Department announced.
Steven Brandenburg, 46, pleaded guilty in February to two counts of attempting to tamper with consumer products with reckless disregard for risking putting another person in danger of death or bodily injury. Brandenburg was skeptical of the Moderna vaccine, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Eastern District of Wisconsin, which cited his plea agreement.
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Brandenburg, who was a pharmacist at the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, took dozens of vials containing hundreds of doses out of the refrigerator meant to maintain their efficacy. He left them out for three hours on Dec. 24 and nine hours on Dec. 25, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which cited court records and Grafton police.
Fifty-seven people, most of whom were hospital staff, reportedly received the tampered-with doses. It is unclear how effective the doses will be in protecting those individuals from COVID-19, but Jeff Bahr, president of Aurora Health Care Medical Group, said on Dec. 31 that “at this time, there is no evidence that the vaccinations pose any harm to them other than potentially being less effective or ineffective.”
A co-worker of Brandenburg told authorities he was “very engaged in conspiracy theories,” including that the earth is flat and that the sky is a shield put up by the government to keep people from seeing God, according to court documents cited by the Wisconsin publication. She said he also expressed a belief that the vaccine was microchipped and that it would “turn off people’s birth control” while making certain people infertile.
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The co-worker reportedly told authorities Brandenburg shared his suspicions publicly to anyone who would listen. Advocate Aurora Health did not address a question from the Washington Examiner regarding whether hospital administrators knew about Brandenburg’s suspicions but did issue a statement regarding his sentencing.
“With safety always our top priority, we continue to move forward after the despicable actions of this individual,” the organization said. “Since this incident, our successful vaccination program has continued with more than 700,000 doses administered to date, and the dropping COVID-19 numbers show how important the vaccines have been in moving us toward the end of the pandemic. The vaccines are safe and effective, and we remain fully committed to doing our part to distribute them in our communities.”
“The purposeful attempt to spoil vaccine doses during a national public health emergency is a serious crime,” acting Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton of the Department of Justice’s Civil Division said on Tuesday. “The Department of Justice will continue working with its law enforcement partners to safeguard these life-saving vaccines.”
