One reason the vaccination program is proceeding so slowly

Damn it, I tell you, there is no reason for it, it’s policy!

Judge dismisses vaccine theft charges against doctor, prosecutor vows to continue the pursuit.

This incident occurred in Texas, but other states, including New York, are also demanding that vaccine doses be thrown out, rather than be administered to unapproved patients. Anyone hoping that a federal top-down distribution system will be free of this kind of rigid bureaucratic idiocy has never been exposed to Social security employees, OSHA, or the EPA.

Harris County Court-At-Law Judge Franklin Bynum dismissed the misdemeanor theft by a public servant charge on Monday against Dr. Hasan Gokal, ruling that no probable cause exists in the case against the emergency room physician who was later fired by Harris County Public Health, the Houston Chronicle reported.

“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,” Bynum wrote in his order. ….

Gokal was accused of stealing a vial that contained nine doses of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine that he claimed would’ve went unused while working a county vaccination site in Humble on Dec. 29.  ….

Gokal has said through his attorney, Paul Doyle, that he opened a vial of Moderna’s vaccine at the end of the day and offered the leftover doses to health workers and cops at the site, but they declined or had already been vaccinated, the Chronicle reported.

The doctor then called a supervisor who had no available patients on hand, prompting Gokal to turn to his cellphone to find contacts to dole out about nine doses off-site to elderly residents or those with pre-existing medical conditions. The final dose was administered to his ill wife, according to the report.

[D] espite Monday’s dismissal, prosecutors said they still intend to pursue charges against the now-fired physician.

“Judge Bynum’s gratuitous observations call into question his fairness and impartiality,” Ogg’s spokesman, Dane Schiller, told the Chronicle. “We anticipate presenting all the evidence in the matter to a grand jury.”

Gokal’s attorney, meanwhile, is now planning a wrongful termination suit against Harris County.

“We appreciate today’s outcome and will now transition our efforts toward a wrongful termination suit,” Doyle told KTRK.  …

Doyle said he also hopes the incident doesn’t deter other medical workers from “doing everything they can” to make sure available vaccines don’t go unused.