Norman — When reporters learned some Wall Street brokerage firms received swine flu vaccines before local hospitals last year, some parents were outraged. Why did persons in low-risk groups get the vaccine before schoolchildren?
The brokerages weren’t the only ones moved up on the list. The Associated Press, using records obtained through a Freedom of Information request, found doses went to a cruise line for its staff, a Department of Energy office, the NASA space center in Houston and other low-risk sites.
About 30,000 sites received vaccines in the first few days of availability. Morgan Stanley in New York received 1,000 doses in early November but turned its shipment over to local hospitals after it learned it got doses before some of the hospitals.
The groups most at risk — children and other young people, pregnant women and those with certain health problems — were supposed to get all of the first doses. It makes you wonder who’s running the ship when cruise lines and stock brokerages were on that early list.
