PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) -- The CEO of the group Philly Fighting COVID admits he took doses of the coronavirus vaccine home with him to administer to four of his friends, even though he does not have medical qualifications.
Andrei Doroshin, a 22-year-old Drexel graduate, defended his actions Thursday morning in an interview on NBC's "Today." He admitted to taking vaccines home with him, saying they were about to expire.
"You vaccinated your friends, young people. Why not find someone in an at-risk group to vaccinate? There are grandmothers, there are grandfathers, there are people all over this country that can't get this vaccine," NBC's Stephanie Gosk said.
"And we did that. Stephanie, the doses were about to expire. We called everybody we knew. Every single person," Doroshin said.
Doroshin said he had undergone the company's internal certifications but admitted he was not qualified to administer the vaccinations.
The city cut ties with Philly Fighting COVID earlier this week over concerns about data privacy after the group went from nonprofit to for-profit status. The group had been running a mass vaccination clinic at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, and prior to that, had been administering coronavirus testing in the city.
Officials believe the group could have sold the data it acquired through its vaccine pre-registration portal on its website, which includes the identities of many more people than had actually been vaccinated.
City health officials say that an audit of the vaccine doses given to Philly Fighting COVID found "no evidence that vaccine was wasted, stolen, or otherwise misused."
Some City Council members are calling for an investigation into how Philly Fighting COVID got approval to run the Convention Center clinic and admnister almost 7,000 doses of vaccine.
