Wisconsin pharmacist arrested on charges of sabotaging COVID vaccine doses

By Steve Gorman and Rebecca Spalding

 

FILE PHOTO: An employee shows the Moderna coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at Northwell Health's Long Island Jewish Valley Stream hospital in New York, U.S., December 21, 2020. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

 

(Reuters) - A Wisconsin hospital pharmacist was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of sabotaging more than 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine by deliberately removing them from refrigeration to spoil, police and medical authorities said.

 

The pharmacist, an employee of Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wisconsin, at the time that 57 vials of vaccine were found left out of cold storage earlier this week, has since been fired but has not been publicly identified, officials said.

 

Each vial contains 10 doses. Nearly 60 of the doses in question were administered before hospital officials determined the medication had been left unrefrigerated long enough to render the vaccine ineffective. The remaining 500-plus doses were then discarded.

 

Moderna Inc, maker of the vaccine, has assured the hospital that receiving an injection of any of the doses removed from refrigeration poses no safety issue, other than leaving the recipient unprotected from COVID infection, said Dr. Jeff Bahr, Aurora Health Care Medical Group president.

 

Neither Aurora Health nor law enforcement offered any possible motive for the sabotage.

 

Those who received the ineffective doses have been notified and will need to be re-vaccinated. The episode means that immunization will be delayed for 570 people who should by now have received their first shot of the two-dose vaccine.

 

Speaking to an online press briefing on Thursday, Bahr said there was no evidence the pharmacist tampered with the vaccines in any way besides removing them from refrigeration, or that any other doses were disturbed.

 

Grafton police said in a statement that the pharmacist "knew the spoiled vaccinations would be useless and that people who received the vaccinations would think they had been vaccinated against the virus when in fact they were not."

 

The incident comes amid public opinion surveys showing widespread skepticism about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, which were granted emergency-use authorization by federal regulators just 11 months after the virus emerged in the United States.

 

Reluctance to take the vaccine has even been expressed by some healthcare workers who are among those designated as first in line to receive them.

 

When initially questioned after the misplaced vials were discovered on Dec. 26, the pharmacist said it was an inadvertent error, but during further review of the matter admitted on Wednesday to intentionally removing the vaccine from refrigeration, hospital officials said.

 

The individual, a resident of Grafton in the Milwaukee suburbs, was arrested on Thursday and booked into the Ozaukee County jail on felony charges of recklessly endangering safety, adulterating a prescription drug and criminal damage to property, police said.

 

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles and Rebecca Spalding in New York; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2021-01-02

 

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Probably some sicko anti vaxer that wants to prove vaccines are useless. Scum. that is all i can say.

Hope they throw the book at this bast*rd. Give him a long prison sentence, and de-license him so he can never practice his profession again.  

Why did he do it?seems to me he shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near any substance that could harm someone hope he does a stint in prison in general population with the inmates knowing of his crime they will sort him out rite quick 

A derogatory troll post has been removed

An anti-vaxxer? Whatever, as he could have caused the death of anyone who did not get the protection they were expecting, a charge of attempted murder should go on the prosecution brief as well.

 

If you read the OP/article then you see each vial has 10 doses. That's 570 people who'd think they are vaccinated but are not.  That's potentially something like 10 deaths at 2% fatality rate and 90% effectiveness.

 

What would you say if a car seller intentionally disabled all safety mechanisms like ABS on the cars he sells? Just pay for the repairs, end of story?

 

Keep in mind he admitted that he intentionally rendered the vaccines ineffective and sold them to people.

Edited February 2, 20215 yr by onthedarkside
quote of hidden post removed

People who thought they were protected are not. That is a big thing even a crime.  Let him pay the revaccination cost and labor and a fine on that. Seems fair to me he wasted a lot of peoples time and put a lot of people at risk who thought they were safe. 

 

Just imagine someone handing you car over telling you its safe but has cut the safety belt without you knowing. 

Edited February 2, 20215 yr by onthedarkside
quote of hidden post removed

The reality of the world today during this pandemic showing us that not only are there some twisted doctors/professional out there that we would normally trust on any given day to deliver us our prescriptions/meds/vacs, well this is new one, and trust for me for these professionals is out the window because of some absolute selfish idiots who have their own opinions being thrust upon us, leaving the vacs out of the freezers to not be affective is a deliberate act to mislead people into thinking they are being vaccinated with effective vaccines, this guy should be up on attempted murder charges.

A good reminder of how dependent we are on the integrity of those who provide medical care and supplies.

would you mind if the clerk at the pharmacy replaced the medicine in your kid's asthma inhaler with saline solution?

 

sure, it's just a couple bucks worth of chemicals.

 

he didn't kill anyone............yet.

Edited February 2, 20215 yr by onthedarkside
quote of hidden post removed

 

 

He sabotaged 500+ doses that could have been given to patients. Had he just destroyed it it was just destruction of a vaccine

 

Now 60 people who thought they were safe could get infected (not murder but close to it)

 

So those 60  people have to come back to take new shots + labor of the people who injected. 

 

So the damage is far bigger. If someone got sick he could be liable for criminal chargers. Maybe already.

 

JUST TO ADD HE DID IT ON PURPOSE.

 

Edited February 2, 20215 yr by onthedarkside
quote of hidden post removed

Multiple off topic and inflammatory posts also replies have been removed,  the topic in case you forgot already is shown again below:

 

Wisconsin pharmacist arrested on charges of sabotaging COVID vaccine doses

 

 

8 minutes ago, ChouDoufu said:

 

would you mind if the clerk at the pharmacy replaced the medicine in your kid's asthma inhaler with saline solution?

 

sure, it's just a couple bucks worth of chemicals.

 

he didn't kill anyone............yet.

Yes just imagine he had destroyed on purpose some heart medicine like nitro. Someone gets a heart attack grabs his nitro.. did not work.

 

Tampering with medicine could certainly lead to deaths. The guy should be punished and maybe should lose his license.

he will be punished.  note the verb "shall" in the law.

 

18 U.S. Code § 1365 - Tampering with consumer products

 

(a) Whoever, with reckless disregard for the risk that another person will be placed in danger of death or bodily injury and under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to such risk, tampers with any consumer product that affects interstate or foreign commerce, or the labeling of, or container for, any such product, or attempts to do so, shall—

 

(1) in the case of an attempt, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both;

(2) if death of an individual results, be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both;

(3) if serious bodily injury to any individual results, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both; and

(4) in any other case, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both........

 

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1365

1 hour ago, robblok said:

Yes just imagine he had destroyed on purpose some heart medicine like nitro. Someone gets a heart attack grabs his nitro.. did not work.

 

Tampering with medicine could certainly lead to deaths. The guy should be punished and maybe should lose his license.

Agree with you, but I would remove 'maybe'.

3 minutes ago, stevenl said:

Agree with you, but I would remove 'maybe'.

 

there is no maybe.  he is now unemployable as a pharmacist, or any employment in the health care field, outside of washing bedpans.

 

if he's lucky, maybe the next president will cancel his student loans.

 

 

 

Jail records show a Steven Brandenburg, 46, was booked Thursday on similar preliminary charges. (ref. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - www. Jsonline.com 12/312020)

Ozaukee County Inmate locator shows Steven Brandenburg as Booking #2020001632, white, DOB 07/1974, H 509, W 205

(ref. www.co.Ozaukee.wi.us/Faq.aspx?QID=195)

 

Any pharmacist doing such a thing, and deliberately, should get a certain kind of injection. Despicable.

 

I can understand if you don't want a vaccine, but why purposely sabotage vaccines to make them unusable and then distribute them knowing they will not work is just a whole new level of crazy anti vaxing.

 

But he could have done it to bolster claims that vaccines don't work. Alternatively he could have gone short on stock of that pharma company and profit from a share price drop if many of those injected with his unusable vaccine get covid. 

 

Then that pharma company gets bad publicity and stock prices might drop.

 

Greed i can understand, (not condone) the alternative explanation is worse. Wanting to seed distrust in vaccines. 

Off-topic, troll posts and replies removed.

 

 It was an act of domestic terror. You should look at the  definition  in USA.

 

A person engages in domestic terrorism if they do an act "dangerous to human life" that is a violation of the criminal laws of a state or the United States, if the act appears to be intended to:  (i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping.

 

Take your argument and apply to  the nurses who change out medications and  cause injury to patients. They are charged with serious crime. The pharmacist violated his professional obligations also.  The people who received vaccine now suffer emotional injury. This will cost the hospital tens of millions in liability claims. Who pays?

 

The assault does not have to be physical and the psychological damage and stress he has done to people is large.

 

People have been  harmed. The vaccine delivery system has been attacked. it is criminal sabotage and should be treated as domestic terrorism.

 

Edited February 2, 20215 yr by onthedarkside
quote and response to hidden post removed

On 1/1/2021 at 7:27 PM, rooster59 said:

during further review of the matter admitted on Wednesday to intentionally removing the vaccine from refrigeration, hospital officials said.

 

Be ready for a "God told me to do it" defense.  There's a lot of that these days.

 

 

Yikes! I must say, any government that can put up a fake sky has my undying support.

 

FBI: Vaccine saboteur believes earth is flat, sky is not real

A Grafton pharmacist who investigators said intentionally tried to sabotage a box of COVID-19 vaccine by leaving it out of the refrigerator for two days told coworkers he believes the Earth is flat and the sky is not real.

 

"Rather it is a shield put up by the Government to prevent individuals from seeing God," an FBI document obtained by the WISN 12 News Investigative Unit revealed.

 

https://www.wisn.com/article/fbi-vaccine-saboteur-signed-email-confession-believes-earth-is-flat/35376052#

 

 

Some pharmacists shouldn’t be allowed access to drugs 

23 minutes ago, mtls2005 said:

Yikes! I must say, any government that can put up a fake sky has my undying support.

 

FBI: Vaccine saboteur believes earth is flat, sky is not real

A Grafton pharmacist who investigators said intentionally tried to sabotage a box of COVID-19 vaccine by leaving it out of the refrigerator for two days told coworkers he believes the Earth is flat and the sky is not real.

 

"Rather it is a shield put up by the Government to prevent individuals from seeing God," an FBI document obtained by the WISN 12 News Investigative Unit revealed.

 

https://www.wisn.com/article/fbi-vaccine-saboteur-signed-email-confession-believes-earth-is-flat/35376052#

 

 

Boy, what a nut.  I'll bet this dude is a supporter of 45.  I mean, birds of a feather and all that...