Wall Street swine and the vaccine scandal

[IndianaGreen]

Wall Street swine and the vaccine scandal

Gary Lapon explains why the production and distribution of vaccine for the H1N1 flu virus went so badly wrong.

November 16, 2009

IT WAS adding insult and injury to injury.

With hospitals, doctor's offices, clinics and schools around the country waiting on scarce supplies of the swine flu vaccine, Wall Street giants Goldman Sachs and Citigroup ordered up more than 1,000 doses between them for company doctors to administer to their employees in New York City.

Distribution of the vaccine is a national scandal, but people's anger was compounded by the news that the banksters jumped to the head of the line. "Wall Street banks have already taken so much from us," John VanDeventer of the Service Employees International Union wrote on the union's Web site. "They've taken trillions of our tax dollars. They've taken away people's homes who are struggling to pay the bills. But they should not be allowed to take away our health and well-being."

But as disgusting as Wall Street's arrogant behavior is, the bigger picture is more serious and much scarier--thousands of people are dying preventable deaths, and millions are becoming seriously ill because the U.S. government's response to the swine flu pandemic relies on a for-profit pharmaceutical industry that prioritizes profits over people and a public health infrastructure that has been gutted by budget cuts.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 3,900 U.S. residents have died from swine flu--the strain of the flu virus officially known as H1N1--since April (540 of them children). That's almost four times higher than previous death toll announced by the CDC--and meanwhile, only 5 percent of Americans report having received the vaccine. Even before the Centers' dramatically higher death tolls were released, President Obama declared a national state of emergency because of the pandemic.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/16/the-flu-vaccine-scandal

[xchrom]

1. recommend -- unless you're an anti-vaxer -- then i guess wall street did everyone a favor. nt

[Robb]

2. Reactionary load of crap.

1) Many, many companies big enough to have clinics in-house got the vax. Part of the distribution plan, has been for years with seasonal flu vaccine as well.

Kroger, for example, the grocery chain. Microsoft. OMG two banks got 1,000 vaccines!!111! Goldman Sachs, IIRC, employs something like 30,000 people. Similar number for Citigroup. This is hardly scandalous.

2) I seem to have to post this over and over, so this time, all caps: BIG PHARMA COULD CARE LESS ABOUT PROFITS FROM THIS VACCINE. The article oohs and aahs about "$7.6 billion to $18 billion in sales worldwide" and forgets that's less than 10% of big pharma sales IN THIS COUNTRY ALONE. Big pharma has bigger fish to fry.

I could go on. But it's an absurd piece.