Speaker 1: Speaking of anti vax, we actually have some I think it's good news anyway.
Remember that Wisconsin pharmacist who very early on tampered with 500 doses of the vaccine,
making them unusable.
He has now been sentenced to three years in federal prison.
This is good news.
The only question is, should he have gotten more time in prison?
And I'll talk about that in a moment.
CBS 58 is reporting that Steven Brandenburg, the ex pharmacist, he is no longer a pharmacist.
You will be glad to know the pharmacist convicted of intentionally tampering with more than
500 doses of the Moderna covid vaccine was sentenced to three years in federal prison
on Tuesday.
Brandenburg was a third shift pharmacist at Advocate Aurora Health Hospital in Grafton,
where he admits to intentionally removing dozens of vials of the Moderna coronavirus
vaccine from refrigeration.
57 doses were administered to coworkers before hospital officials found out about this and
destroyed the rest of the doses.
The 57 doses were determined to be still effective and did not produce health effects for the
patients who received them.
At his sentencing, Brandenburg told the court he was greatly ashamed of his actions and
he took responsibility for them.
His defense attorney detailed how his life spiraled prior to the incident.
He had a messy divorce.
He had mental and emotional issues.
He had a sense of disillusionment with work and with the stress of the pandemic.
But his former employer was very angry and insisted he needs to be punished, that this
has impacted hospital staff who are now just trying to rebuild confidence in the system
there that this won't happen again.
Government prosecutors asked for fifty one months, meaning four years, three months.
The judge said that the guilty plea.
The lack of criminal record and other factors led to a three year sentence that the judge
feels is just but not excessive.
In addition to being imprisoned for three years, the judge ordered Brandenberg to serve
three years of supervised release and to pay about eighty three thousand dollars in restitution
to the hospital.
Now, this is just the federal case.
There is also a state case related to this pending against Brandenberg.
We will see what happens there.
So first and foremost, three years.
Is this enough time?
Um.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess so.
What I think about is.
If indeed so, a bunch of these dosis 57 of the 500 tambra doses were given to people,
but then the rest of the 500 were thrown out.
This was really early on in the pandemic.
This was when there was really limited vaccine supply and they were really only going to
health care workers.
And those are the absolute, absolute highest risk.
So delaying four hundred and fifty doses, 443 doses, which was what just was thrown
out due to the tampering that realistically could have led to some really high risk people
not getting their dose for a longer period of time.
And some of them could have caught the virus and some of them could have died.
Now, it may have happened or it may not have.
I don't actually know whether that happened.
I don't know whether we can even say for sure.
But people may have or could have died as a result of this.
And so three years, I don't know.
What I do know is these people have to be made an example out of now.
You can always come in and say as as was argued, this was a person who is not doing well emotionally
and mentally in all of the stuff.
And clearly, those were mitigating factors in terms of the sentencing.
But a signal has to be sent that this is just an absolute no, this is I mean, would we say
it's equivalent to tampering with medication?
Would be is it equivalent to doing something to a medication you're dispensing to someone
who may be seriously ill and depending on a medication to stay alive?
Would it be equivalent to messing with the medication, doing something with it that makes
it not work or dispensing the wrong medication?
I mean, it seems that it would be at least at that level, and it was deliberate.
It was not an accident.
I saw a funny comment on line saying just another victim of council culture.
He spoke out in some sense against the vaccine by doing this and now he's been canceled.
I hope that those are jokes.
The these folks have to be made examples out of and threw away his career.
No longer licensed, licensed as a pharmacist.
Not good times.
Not good times for Mr Brandenberg, but it has to be taken seriously.
My question for you is, is three years the right sentence?
Prosecutors asking for four years, three months, the judge saying three years.
Do you feel it's too harsh, not harsh enough or just right?
Let me know.
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