Public Outraged Wall Street Banks Received Sought-After H1N1 Vaccines

11 Nov 2009 // Wall Street banks, already hovering near an all-time low in the court of public opinion, sparked new outrage by finagling doses of the highly sought-after H1N1 swine flu vaccine for their employees.

Watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility & Ethics in Washington wants Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to investigate the issue. A BusinessWeek article quoted executive director Melanie Sloan:

“In what world do Wall Street employees deserve to be vaccinated ahead of high-risk children, pregnant women, and health-care workers? Unfortunately, for the thousands being turned away in clinics across America, the CDC has decided to prioritize the millionaires over the masses.”

Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan and others were quick to point out that they are only distributing the vaccine to employees who qualify as high-risk. New York City health officials also defended the decision, saying that workplace distributions are part of their efforts to achieve widespread vaccine administration. Other employers that have or will receive the vaccine include Time Warner, the Federal Reserve Bank, New York Presbyterian Healthcare System, Columbia University and New York University, according to BusinessWeek and other sources.

Even so, some folks are concerned that select corporations are getting the vaccine while some schools, hospitals and doctors’ offices still haven’t received a fraction of what they need.

Then there’s the lingering question: how does the public know the banks (and other companies) are really giving the vaccine only to high-risk employees and not to privileged senior level execs?

According to BusinessWeek, New York health officials make the companies sign a federal waiver agreeing they’ll administer the vaccine only to high-risk populations.

So basically the banks have signed a paper giving their word that they’ll do the right thing. Well, it’s fortunate the past actions of banks (and plenty of other big companies, for that matter) have proven to the public that they are trustworthy and morally above reproach.