COVID-19 vaccine theft charge dismissed against Texas doctor

HOUSTON – A judge on Monday rejected a theft charge against a Houston area health department doctor who had been accused by prosecutors of stealing nine doses of the coronavirus vaccine from a damaged bottle and administering it to family and friends .

Authorities alleged that Hasan Gokal, who worked for Harris County Public Health, stole a vial of the Modern coronavirus vaccine while working at a vaccination site in a Houston suburban park on December 29.

But Harris County Court Judge Franklin Bynum concluded that there was no probable cause to charge Gokal with theft. The judge criticized prosecutors for accusing Gokal, saying his complaint of probable cause was “riddled with negligence and errors”.

“In the number of words normally used to describe a allegation of shoplifting, the state attempts, for the first time, to criminalize the documented administration of vaccine doses by a doctor during a public health emergency,” wrote Bynum in his dispatch of two pages rejecting the load. “The court emphatically rejects this attempt to impose criminal law on a doctor’s professional decisions.”

Dane Schiller, a spokesman for the Harris County Public Prosecutor’s Office, said Bynum’s decision raised questions about his fairness and impartiality.

“We look forward to presenting all the evidence on the subject to a grand jury and proceeding from there,” said Schiller.

The Harris County District Attorney’s Office did not immediately comment on the rejection of the theft charge, but indicated that it could issue a statement on Monday.

Gokal’s lawyers said the doctor did nothing wrong and was just trying to ensure that the vaccine from a perforated bottle was not wasted.

Paul Doyle, Gokal’s lawyer, said his client plans to file an illegal termination process. Gokal was fired after an internal investigation by the health department.

“The agency downplayed the name of this good civil servant and took his job without cause. More needs to be done by those responsible to fix this, ”said Doyle in a statement. “We also sincerely hope that this incident will not prevent other frontline medical personnel from doing everything they can to ensure that vaccines are not wasted.”

Prosecutors claimed that after one day of administering vaccines on December 29 in a suburban Houston park, Gokal, 48, took the vial off the premises and vaccinated nine individuals, including his wife. They claimed that the action ignored the health department’s rules that doses of damaged vials must be brought back to the central office so that they can be administered to at-risk frontline workers, including health officials and police, and the vulnerable populations.

But Doyle said that after the bottle was punctured, Gokal had only six hours on December 29 to administer the doses before they expired and after not being able to find any front-line employees to give the vaccine, he gave it to individuals who have qualified to receive it. Gokal did not hide what he did, but he told his vaccination team, Doyle said.

Gokal faced a charge of theft misdemeanor by a public official. If convicted, he could have received up to a year in prison and a $ 4,000 fine.

In Wisconsin, a pharmacist was arrested in December after being accused of damaging 57 vials of the Modern vaccine because he allegedly believed the vaccine would change the DNA of recipients.

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Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70