Pharmacist ‘who deliberately destroyed 570 Covid vaccine doses is conspiracy theorist who thought jab could change DNA’

A PHARMACIST who allegedly sabotaged 570 Covid-19 vaccine doses is also believed to be a conspiracy theorist who thought the jab could alter DNA. 

Steven Brandenburg, who was arrested at a hospital in Wisconsin, was “an admitted conspiracy theorist” who was convinced that the vaccine could hurt people and “change their DNA,” police in Grafton told The New York Times on Monday. 

Bradenburg, 46, took a box of Moderna vaccine vials out from a refrigerator at Aurora Medical Center for 12-hour periods, making them “useless,” police said. 

The pharmacist “admitted to doing this intentionally, knowing that it would diminish the effects of the vaccine,” police told the newspaper.

He was arrested on charges of intentionally sabotaging the doses.

Moderna’s coronavirus jab has been called a “genetic” vaccine, but it does not change human genes, as Bradenburg reportedly believed. 

The vials with 570 doses were found outside of the refrigerator on Dec. 26.

Bradenburg was arrested on felony charges of reckless endangerment and property damage five days after the incident.

The vials were worth $8,000 to $12,000.

Brandenburg was “pretty cooperative and admitted to everything he’d done,” and “expressed that he was under great stress because of marital problems,” prosecutor Adam Gerol said.

Co-workers said that Bradenburg had brought a gun to work two times in the past, according to Gerol. 

Bradenburg is no longer an employee at the hospital, officials at the facility said. 

The hospital said that 57 people received the jabs apparently left out by Bradenburg. 

Moderna told authorities that the compromised vaccines would not harm those people. 

Hospital officials initially thought the vaccine vials were left outside the refrigerator by accident, but investigated the matter and concluded that the individual responsible intended to do so.

Bradenburg’s wife, Gretchen Bradenburg, is divorcing him and asking for sole custody of their four-year-old and six-year-old daughters. 

In a motion she filed last week for custody of their children, Gretchen Bradenburg said her husband dropped off two buckets of 30-day food supply, powdered milk and a water purifier. 

“He told me that if I didn’t understand by now that he is right and that the world is crashing down around us, I am in serious denial,” she said in the affidavit. 

“He continued to say that the government is planning cyberattacks and plans to shut down the power grid.”

The wife also said she was afraid of his reaction if he lost his job at the hospital. 

Aurora Health Care Medical Group president Jeff Bahr said last Thursday that the incident involved “a bad actor, as opposed to a bad process.”

Wisconsin has administered 64,657 doses of the 159,800 it has received as of Saturday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.