Doctor Fired Over Administering Vaccines Before Doses Expired, “It Was The Lowest Moment In My Life”

A Texas doctor who distributed 10 doses of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine off-site has been fired. Dr. Hasan Gokal, who was working for a health department in the Houston-area, said the doses would have otherwise been discarded. The Houston Chronicle reports:

Gokal said he called a supervisor at the health department, who knew of no available patients. He then used contacts in his cellphone and administered about nine doses off-site to eligible recipients: elderly residents or those with certain medical conditions. Unable to find any other recipient, Gokal said he gave the final dose to his chronically ill wife after 11 p.m.

Soon after Gokal was fired and criminally charged in connection with the incident. According to the New York Times, “The officials maintained that he had violated protocol and should have returned the remaining doses to the office or thrown them away, the doctor recalled.”

The Chronicle notes that the charges were quickly dropped with the judge on the case saying “In the number of words usually taken to describe an allegation of retail shoplifting, the State attempts, for the first time, to criminalize a doctor’s documented administration of vaccine doses during a public health emergency.” 

The Times notes that “both the Texas Medical Association and the Harris County Medical Society recently issued a statement of support for physicians like Dr. Gokal who find themselves scrambling ‘to avoid wasting the vaccine in a punctured vial.’”

“It is difficult to understand any justification for charging any well-intentioned physician in this situation with a criminal offense.”

There are questions about whether Gokal’s race and the race of those he vaccinated also played some role in this.

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Despite the support and the lack of charges now, Gokal told the Times that “he continues to pay a price for not wasting a vaccine in a pandemic.”