
Who should be first in line for vaccinations during a major influenza epidemic?
The indispensable, frontline workers, of course – physicians, paramedics and other health care providers, for sure, and police, firefighters and other safety officials.
And, it turns out, Wall Street banking firms.
Banks and other financial companies were given “a private allocation” of the vaccine, according to a post on the Washington political Web site, The Hill. This, notes The Hill’s Brent Budowsky, “while many kids, hospitals and pregnant women cannot get enough of the swine flu vaccine.”
The Guardian in the UK reports that Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley employees were among the first New Yorkers to get the H1N1 vaccine. The newspaper says U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd was “stunned” when he found out and penned a protest letter to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
“Vaccines should go to people who need them most, not people who happen to work on Wall Street,” Dodd said.
No kidding.
New York Health Department officials said the bankers were among the first to get the vaccine because they were among the first to apply. The Health Department is encouraging companies to distribute the vaccines at work sites.
The investment companies only received a percentage of the doses they requested. But I know first hand of hospitals that have been unable to offer their employees – people who are exposed to sick patients every day – H1N1 vaccines because there weren’t enough to go around.
At best, public officials are persuing grossly misguided policy by lumping hospitals and clinics in with private companies that have nothing whatsoever to do with alleviating public suffering during a health care crisis.
At worst, they are creating a public relations debacle at a time when investment banks are already scorned by Americans for playing fast and loose with the economy, then making the taxpayers pick up the tab for their bad bets.
As The Hill’s Budowsky says, the policy “does not do well on the smell test,” whatever the motivation.
Repair work is under way. Morgan Stanley gave its allotment of 1,000 doses to area hospitals, according to Bloomberg. And the White House reiterated that no matter where the vaccines were administered, only high risk people would get them.
Of course, at private companies that’s based on the “honor system,” according to public health officials. Interesting choice of words, isn’t it?
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