Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, etc have started receiving small quantities of H1N1 vaccine

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and other large city employers have started receiving small quantities of swine flu vaccine for high-risk employees

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/nov2009/db2009112_606442.htm

To the list of hundreds of schools, hospitals, and community health centers that have received limited allocations of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, you can now add some of New York's largest employers. In the past week or so 13 companies, including Citigroup (C) and Goldman Sachs (GS), have begun receiving small quantities of the vaccine, according to city health authorities.

Citigroup has been supplied with 1,200 units and Goldman with 200, says Jessica Scaperotti, press secretary for the Department of Health & Mental Hygiene. The agency has so far approved orders by 29 employers—including 16 that have yet to receive any vaccine—after they were cleared by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). Big employers that have received or are scheduled to receive vaccine so far include Time Warner (TWX), JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Memorial Sloan-Kettering, New York Presbyterian Healthcare System, and New York University.

Health-care workers at those employers are bound by the CDC to distribute the vaccine only to populations deemed to be at high risk of developing serious complications from swine flu: pregnant women, children and young people aged 6 months to 24 years, people who live with or provide care for infants under 6 months (who cannot be vaccinated), people aged 24 to 64 with medical conditions that put them at higher risk for flu-related complications, and health-care workers and emergency medical personnel. A spokeswoman for Goldman, who asked not to be named, said the company had just received the vaccine and did not yet have information as to how it would be distributed, saying that Goldman will supply vaccine only to those who qualify as high-risk, per the CDC requirements. Citigroup had not responded with a comment as of the evening of Nov. 2.

continued

[piratefish08]

1. Get in line behind the financial industry. Again. I'm getting used to this.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

2. Exactly. :(

[enlightenment]

3. Oh, really?

Fascinating. Because those people are too important to have out sick? Money certainly talks . . .

[stray cat]

4. America is trying to poison the financial institutions

because after all the flu vaccine is really dangerous :rofl: If the health industry doesn't want it and 1/2 the population doesn't - why not? However, it would be nice if they could get it to members of the public that would like to be vaccinated.

[PVnRT]

5. If this were going to, say, bank tellers, I guess I could understand

They are in contact with lots of people all day long.

Something tells me that's not what these doses are for.

[geek tragedy]

7. The doses are for:

"pregnant women, children and young people aged 6 months to 24 years, people who live with or provide care for infants under 6 months (who cannot be vaccinated), people aged 24 to 64 with medical conditions that put them at higher risk for flu-related complications, and health-care workers and emergency medical personnel."

[PVnRT]

8. Meanwhile, our local school district got enough doses for elementary schools only

As I said, if those banks are giving them to people who need them, fine. If they're just getting handed out because our government loves giving free shit to banks for no reason, then it's a problem. Maybe you're not cynical, but I am.

[piratefish08]

10. and very rich white men.

[geek tragedy]

14. Citi employs thousands of people in NYC.

Most of them are middle class.

[geek tragedy]

6. So what?

Is a pregnant woman or a mother of small children working for Citi less deserving than someone working for a school or hospital?

[Jennicut]

9. In CT, there are clinics for all the people who need it most.

I don't see why we have to give it to individual companies unless all companies get some, big and small.
My two girls were vaccinated yesterday at a clinic.

[geek tragedy]

13. It makes sense to make it easier for people

to get vaccines--especially if they have long commutes.

[Canuckistanian]

11. They'll just bundle them and sell them off

Then buy more stocks in GlaxoSmithKline, while simultaneously taking over funeral homes.

[City Lights]

12. My daughter is in the high-risk group. Too bad her large high school didn't get a supply.

If she's going to get it, she has to miss school and stand in line for hours.

Vaccine lines for those not important enough to have it brought to them.

She is still waiting to get a regular flu shot. She was scheduled for mid-October, but her pediatrician's shipment never arrived. It's supposed to arrive sometime in early November.

[Kievan Rus]

15. Figures they get swine flu vaccine...they're all pigs to begin with!