A grand jury declined to indict Dr Hasan Gokal (pictured) after allegations that he stole doses of the Moderna vaccine by distributing them to friends and family
A Houston doctor accused of stealing nine COVID-19 vaccine doses and administering them to his friends and family will not be charged by a grand jury.
Dr Hasan Gokal, 48, allegedly stole a vial of the Moderna shot while working g at a vaccination site at a suburban Houston park on December 29
He was fired from his job at Harris County Public Health and initially charged with misdemeanor count of theft by a public servant, though the case was quickly dismissed.
Prosecutors attempted to stick charges to him once again, though, and took the case to a grand jury.
But the grand jury declined to bring charges against Gokal on Wednesday.
Gokal was administering vaccines as part of an event in Lyndsay Lyons Park, and, at the end of the event, one vial of vaccine - each of which contains ten to eleven doses - had to be opened for the final person to receive the vaccine.
Once a vial is opened, doses must be quickly used or discarded, they can not return to storage.
Gokal said that he offered the final ten doses to other staff at the event, though they all either declined or had been previously vaccinated.
Not wanting to waste the doses, he began to contact friends and family members in the area to get the shots, and he gave the final available shot to his wife - who was eligible due to a medical condition.
Paul Doyle, Gokal's attorney, criticized the decision by prosecutors to pursue charges, saying Gokal's supervisor had approved his plan for the leftover vaccine doses.
His attorney said Gokal was only trying to save lives by using doses that would have been thrown away.
'There is no other case that I know of in the country where a doctor went above and beyond and was persecuted for it,' Doyle said.
Doyle said hundreds of medical professionals and others had written letters, sent emails and made phone calls in support of Gokal's actions.
One of the people Goal (right) distributed the vaccine to was his wife Maria (right) who has a condition that made her eligible for the vaccine at the time. Maria was among ten people Gokal distributed vaccine doses to after an event to avoid them expiring
'It was my world coming down,' Gokal told the New York Times about the incident in February.
'To have everything collapse on you. God, it was the lowest moment in my life.'
Gokal is an immigrant from Pakistan and earned his medical degree from SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York.
He moved to Texas in 2009 to oversee the emergency department at the hospital after working in Central New York.
In the early days of the pandemic, Gokal lived in a hotel and then moved apartment out of fear of infecting his wife, Maria, 47.
Maria suffers from pulmonary sarcoidosis, a disease in the lungs that leaves Maria winded after doing little activity, and made her among the first Americans eligible for vaccination.
'I was petrified to go home and bring Covid to my wife,' the doctor said.
Gokal described being recruited to be the medical director for Harris County Public Health's Covid-response team in April.
While the job paid less, he said he was thrilled the job would allow him to better protect his wife and limit her exposure to the virus, according to the Times.
During a December 22 conference call, state officials advised Gokal to administer the Moderna vaccine to people who worked in health care or to residents in long-term care facilities and then those who were over 65 or with health conditions who had increased risk of getting coronavirus.
Gokal was promptly fired after reporting the ten doses. The officials explained to Gokal that he had violated protocol, adding that he should have returned the remaining doses or thrown them out, he claims
The doctor claims that on the day of the incident, when the final vial was opened and only one person received a shot from it, he decided to find other people he knew in the community to get vaccinated.
He called a Harris County public official in charge of operations, sharing his plan to give out the remaining 10 doses and was given approval.
When he got
