Did corporate America steal swine flu vaccines?
According to Megan Cottrell – or at least the title of this post – that seems to be exactly the case. Megan starts us off with the tragic story of a pregnant lady who contracted swine flu and died. She then links us to this report detailing how some state health agencies dished out swine flu vaccines to corporate health clinics. In Florida, for instance, Disney received 2,200 doses.
Note, however, that Chicago is not in Florida. The heart-strings-pulling story of the pregnant woman who died from a shortage of swine flu vaccine took place in Illinois. Nowhere in the USA Today piece or in Megan’s post do we see any mention of Illinois. And the vaccines that landed in Disney’s health clinic were never destined for a Chicago doctor’s office to begin with.
So perhaps it’s just a bad example.
But there are other things wrong with this picture.
First of all, we have the word steal. It seems out of place. According to the USA Today report, each individual state health agency decides how to distribute its flu vaccines. Some states chose to deliver some of their supply to corporate health clinics. Some – like Georgia – did not. This strikes me as a decision made by the government, not one made by corporations. Or at most it’s the actions we should expect from a government which is captured at so many levels by strong corporate interests. Either way, blame your elected officials and the bureaucracy.
Second, while I share Megan’s aspirations for healthcare reform, imagining that what is actually trudging its way through Congress at the moment would have any meaningful impact on vaccine distribution is simply wishful thinking. The problem with vaccine distribution has nothing to do with insurance coverage or equitable access. It has everything to do with how vaccines are created, which is an agonizingly slow process using agonizingly outdated methods. It’s a supply-side question, not an insurance question. (An important distinction in an often muddled conversation about healthcare reform.)
The one conclusion I can draw from all of this is that we should be better watchdogs not of the easy targets – those nefarious corporations – but of the bureaucrats who are calling the shots. And more importantly, we should hold accountable those elected officials who pay the bureaucrats to call those shots for them.
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“It has everything to do with how vaccines are created, which is an agonizingly slow process using agonizingly outdated methods.”
Evidence, please – specifically on the methods used.
ianm,
Flu vaccines are made using chicken eggs. You can read about the process here.
In response to another comment. See in context »Hi there –
Thanks for linking to my post.
In the future, feel free to call me Megan. I hate being called Ms. Cottrell. Just a pet peeve of mine.
No, Florida and Illinois are not near each other. But my blog is about Chicago, so I wanted a local example that illustrates a national story.
I didn’t actually say that the vaccine dilemma has to do with insurance specifically. I understand the difference. What I was saying was that the entire system – not just insurance, but the way we think about health care and who it needs to go to – needs to be overhauled. Just like the insurance system, the wealthy get and access while the poor get sicker and some die.
You’re right – elected officials and bureaucracy are responsible. But so are corporations who asked for flu vaccines and gave them to non-vulnerable populations. If you have 2000 plus doses of a flu vaccine, and you choose to give it to healthy people, knowing that there’s a shortage nationwide, that’s immoral.
It’s not just a supply side question. It’s a distribution question. If we have a limited amount, those vaccines should go to the most vulnerable first. Instead, many doses went to who had the most money and power. That’s what I was writing about.
Megan – good I like calling people by their first name as well – it’s not so much that I disagree with the gist of your post. It’s that I see the root not at the corporate level but at the government level, and that I worry that the more power we place in the hands of the state, the more we’ll see the state buckling to its overly-influential corporate interests.
I could be wrong. I’m just not sure how to avoid this sort of capture. And I think blaming the corporations is sort of an easy way out of a much more complicated problem.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Masa Horie, E.D. Kain. E.D. Kain said: Did corporate America steal swine flu vaccines? http://tinyurl.com/y953xvh @trueslant [...]
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