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MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin: A state board on Wednesday (January 13) suspended the license of a Wisconsin pharmacist accused of ruining more than 500 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine because he thought it was unsafe.
Steven Brandenburg was working at Advocate Aurora Health in Grafton, about 20 miles north of Milwaukee, when he was arrested last month following an investigation into the 57 spoiled vials of the Moderna vaccine. He has not been criminally charged. A conference on the status of the case is scheduled for Tuesday.
The Wisconsin Board of Pharmacy Examiners said in its order that Brandenburg cannot practice pharmacy while the suspension is in effect. He said Brandenburg agreed to the action “to focus” on possible charges against him.
Brandenburg attorney Jason Baltz did not immediately respond to a phone message left Wednesday night by the Associated Press.
Advocate Aurora Health Care Medical Group Director Jeff Bahr has said Brandenburg admitted that he deliberately removed the vials from the refrigerator at the Grafton Medical Center.
A detective wrote in a probable cause statement that Brandenburg, 46, is an admitted conspiracy theorist and that he told investigators that he intentionally tried to screw up the vaccine because it could harm people by changing his DNA.
READ: Go only to trusted sources for vaccine information, says head of COVID-19 vaccination committee
READ: Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Sinovac: A Look at Three Key COVID-19 Vaccines
Misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines has risen in line with false claims circulating about vaccine ingredients and potential side effects.
One of the first false claims suggested that vaccines could alter DNA. The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, as well as the Moderna vaccine, are based on messenger RNA or mRNA, which is a fairly new technology used in vaccines that experts have been working on for years.
The 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 that claims that vaccines can genetically modify humans are not true.
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