A Houston area health department prosecutor is accused by prosecutors of stealing nine doses of coronavirus vaccine from a damaged vial and administer it to family and friends. But Hasan Gokal insists he did nothing wrong and was just trying to keep the vaccine from being wasted, his lawyer said Thursday.
Harris County Public Health
Authorities report that 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 Dec. 29.
Gokal told a health department employee earlier this month that “he had taken a punctured bottle of the Modern vaccine … at the end of operations and that he took the bottle out of place and vaccinated his friends and relatives, “according to a probable cause of complaint.
Prosecutors determined that Gokal, 48, had given the vaccine to nine people, including his wife, according to the complaint.
“He abused his position to place his friends and family in front of people who had gone through the legal process to be there,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said. “What he did was illegal and he will be held responsible according to the law.”
Gokal’s attorney Paul Doyle called his client a “dedicated public official who made sure that doses of COVID-19 vaccine that would otherwise have expired went into the arms of people who met the criteria to receive- the.
“Harris County would have preferred Dr. Gokal to drop the vaccines and is trying to underestimate this man’s reputation in the process to support this policy. We hope our court day comes to correct this mistake,” he said. said Doyle in a statement. .
Gokal was fired after an internal investigation by the health department.
Authorities said Gokal disregarded rules related to viable doses of punctured vaccine vials that direct employees to ensure that these doses are returned to the main office so that they can be administered to high-risk front-line workers. , including health workers and police officers and vulnerable populations.
Misuse of the vaccine could result in the loss of government funding to the county, according to the health department.
Gokal faces a felony theft of a public official. If convicted, he faces up to a year in prison and a $ 4,000 fine.
In Wisconsin, a pharmacist was arrested in December after being arrested accused of ruining 57 vials of the Modern vaccine because he allegedly believed that the vaccine would mutate the DNA of the recipients.