What to know
- The revelation that the city did not require contracts for vaccine administrators comes a day after it ended its relationship with a business called Philly Fighting COVID.
- The city gave up Philly Fighting COVID due to confidentiality and data issues after it became known that the organization is for profit.
- The city’s health secretary said he would look for better ways to “check” organizations before partnering with them.
An organization called Philly Fighting COVID, led by a 22-year-old Drexel University researcher, received 6,950 doses of coronavirus vaccine from the city of Philadelphia before the city abruptly ended its relationship on Monday.
The termination of the partnership came after the city was alerted by media reports that Philly Fighting COVID had become a lucrative business. There have been concerns that the business, founded by Andrei Doroshin, could sell data provided by vaccine seekers.
On Tuesday, amid questions about the verification process that the Philadelphia Department of Public Health is using to evaluate vaccine partners, city officials acknowledged that there are no contracts with organizations that administer the vaccine on behalf of the city.
“There is no contract with any provider that administers vaccines,” said public health spokesman James Garrow.
He said the city only asked organizations to fill out a form.
“Every organization that administers vaccines in Philadelphia has registered with the Department of Health with a form to make sure they can meet the minimum requirements for vaccine distribution,” Garrow said. “There is no tax contract between the city and any COVID vaccine provider, because the city has not received any money from the federal government to distribute the vaccine.”
The Secretary of Health, Dr. Thomas Farley, said the Department of Public Health will see what additional things we can do to check on any organization that works with us.
“In retrospect, this organization was not good for us to have a partnership with that organization,” Farley said.
A spokesman for Mayor Jim Kenney declined to comment further.
Garrow did not immediately respond to a request for a list of organizations that received doses of COVID-19 from the city or how many doses were given to each.
Of the 6,950 doses given to Philly Fighting COVID, city health officials have records for the administration of 6,757. There are 193 that remain undeclared.
Doroshin did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement posted on Twitter, Doroshin said that “we understand that there have been legitimate investigations into our privacy policies.”
“I apologize for the mistake in our privacy policy,” the statement said. “We never sold, shared or disseminated the data we collected because it would not violate HIPAA rules.”
“We’re here for Philly,” he added.
More than 132,000 doses have been received by the city since Tuesday. Of these, 90,600 were administered as first doses and 24,000 were administered as second doses.
The city expects to receive 20,000 doses each week by the end of February.
Farley promised that anyone who received the first dose through Philly Fighting COVID would still receive the second dose on time.
He also said that Philly Fighting COVID told the city that they did not intend to sell the data.
“We are working with our Law Department to see if there is any way we can ensure that this does not happen right now. [Philly Fighting COVID is] saying that this information has not been published, “Farley said.
On Monday night, the company added a privacy policy and agreement on the terms and conditions of service on its website. He also removed a page listing staff, including Doroshin. However, the page is visible in a cached version of the site.
The end of the partnership between the city and Philly Fighting COVID was first reported by WHYY.
“We are a bunch of nerds, engineers and scientists who have come together to fight this pandemic,” according to a line at the top of the team’s page.
Despite assurances from Farley and a bold statement on the website that reads: “* THE COMPANY WILL NOT SELL DATA TO ANY PARTY, “The language of the privacy policy is less clear.
“We may share or transfer your personal information in connection with or during negotiations regarding any merger, sale of the company’s assets, financing or acquisition of all or part of our business to another company,” the policy states. a section called “For business transfers”.
Two law enforcement officials, Attorney General Josh Shapiro and District Attorney Larry Krasner, said on Twitter that anyone who thinks they know about the misuse of vaccines should get to their offices.