Thursday, July 01, 2021

Grand Jury Declines to Indict Houston Doctor Accused of Stealing COVID Vaccine

As reported by The NY TimesThe Associated PressKHOU-TV, the Houston Chronicle, and Forbes, Dr. Hasan Gokal will not be indicted by the Harris County grand jury on charges that he stole vials of COVID-19 vaccine for family and friends. His defense consisted of the following:

  1. The doses were about to be destroyed due to nonuse and aging.
  2. It was his duty as a physician -- and one employed by the Harris County health department -- to maximize health and protect life.
  3. Allowing the doses to be destroyed would have been a violation of his professional duties and sacred oath.
In short: "In an interview with The Associated Press, Gokal, 48, said when he was confronted with the possibility that a life saving vaccine could be lost, he made the decision to find eligible people late at night who could be given the expiring doses."

Although Harris County Public Health fired Gokal over the incident, the defense worked with the Texas Medical Board, which dismissed charges against him, as well as with a Harris County Court-at-Law Judge, who dismissed the theft charges against him. Prosecutors then turned to the grand jury, which rejected the case on June 30.

I'm searching for the right analogy to capture what was wrong with the prosecutor's case. Is this an "inverse Jean Valjean" situation, where the loaf of bread (vials of vaccine) would have been stolen not to feed Gokal's family (though his wife did get one of the doses) but the family of others? 

It's difficult to criticize Gokal's action if [1] the vaccine was going to be destroyed unless he acted, [2] noöne would be harmed if he did act (so this is not a variation on The Trolley Problem), [3] 9 otherwise at-risk individuals acquired some protection from infection at a time (late December 2020) when COVID-19 was still running rampant, and [4] Gokal himself wasn't responsible for creating the dilemma in the first place. 

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