Ron Amundson’s Political Blog

Business Week broke a story on Wall Street getting dibs on H1N1 Vaccine this week. It was also covered on the Today Show this morning, albeit with a slightly different spin. The Business Week article suggested that Wall Street firms were getting their vaccine only for high risk individuals per CDC guidance, which the Today Show segment failed to mention. While such a process while morally suspect, seems reasonable as a time saving measure for large firms. By the same token, I seriously doubt anyone believes only high risk individuals will get the vaccine. Ethics and morality have not exactly been a proven track record by that group.

It was interesting to note The Today Show’s doctor, Nancy Snyderman, made a suggestion that the best PR route would likely be for the Wall Street firms to donate their vaccine supplies to Hospitals… From a PR point of view, that does make sense. Otoh, by the same token, its not unreasonable to suspect high risk individuals work at those firms, and whether fair or not, to pull vaccine access from a child or pregnant woman at those firms is not cool either. No matter what, the Wall Street firms really have a PR mess and then some to deal with.

I posturoused about the medicine of science, economics, and rationing a bit some weeks ago, and I mentioned a UMN paper dealing with the ethics of rationing during a pandemic. Its interesting to note the 3 big ethical commitments which were recommended.

• Are accountable, transparent and worthy of trust
• Promote solidarity and mutual responsibility
• Respond to needs fairly, effectively and efficiently

Sort of looks like the government blew it in all 3 places with this mess.

Next, lets look at the principles suggested by the UMN paper.

• Protect the population‘s health
• Protect public safety and civil order
• Treat people fairly, recognizing the moral equality of all

It Looks like the govt might have opened the door to blow the civil order aspect based upon reading a comment suggesting Kevlar vests as required apparel for Wall Street employees. Sadly, it does seem that a bad outcome in the civil order arena may occur as time passes as more and more folks are angered at Wall Street. Most certainly, there is no need to add fuel to the fire. As far as public health goes… if someone gets vaccine who is not in a high risk, nor high exposure arena ahead of another person who is… well they sort of blew that too. And morality, well its pretty obvious it was hosed up too.

Of course… a lame and somewhat seedy approach to this, is to view Wall Street as a critical part of National Security. Ie top execs could be viewed as irreplaceable key employees, and as such they must be given a much higher priority than high risk individuals far from Wall Street, such as pregnant woman, or children. I would certainly hope thats not the case…