(2009-11-07) Swine Flu Vaccine Wall St

New York City health officials have distributed small amounts of the Swine Flu vaccine to some major New York companies, including Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and CitiGroup, even as shortages continue. Citigroup has received 1,200 doses, more than half of what it requested, health officials said, and in late October, Goldman received 200 of the 5,400 doses it asked for. By contrast, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center received 200 of the 27,400 doses that it requested for its workers, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene... Citigroup and Goldman Sachs said they had administered the vaccine to pregnant women and employees with serious health conditions.

Once the vaccine became more available in late October, Dr. Farley said, "We tried to give something to everyone so they could all get started."

Vaccine shortages are widespread because of production problems. One federal official predicted in the spring that as many as 120 million doses would be available by now and about 200 million by the end of the year. According to the C.D.C., 35.6 million doses are available.

Fabius Maximus thinks this is very overblown. Farley: they're high-risk individuals that are accessing providers at all sites. I'll give you an example if you have an employer who has 5,000 employees, at least 10% or 20% of those employees will be at high risk. Having diabetes heart disease or pregnancy this is one way to reach them. (Of course, the question is whether places like Goldman Sachs really make sure they're targeting only the high-risk employees, and not the noisy/rich traders.)