What to know
- The announcement that the city does not require contracts for vaccine administrators comes one day after it ended its relationship with a company called Philly Fighting COVID.
- The city dumped Philly Fighting COVID over privacy and data after it became known that the organization was profitable.
- The city’s health secretary said he would look at better ways to “investigate” organizations before working with them.
An organization called Philly Fighting COVID, run by a 22-year-old Drexel University researcher, received 6,950 doses of the Philadelphia City’s coronavirus vaccine before the city abruptly ended its relationship Monday.
The termination of the partnership came after the city was informed by media reports that Philly Fighting COVID had become a lucrative business. There were concerns that the company, founded by Andrei Doroshin, could sell data provided by people seeking the vaccine.
Amid questions about the investigation process the Philadelphia Department of Public Health is using to evaluate vaccine partners, city officials on Tuesday 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 provides vaccines,” said James Garrow, a public health spokesman.
He said the city only requires organizations to fill out a form.
“Every organization that distributes vaccine in Philadelphia is registered with the Department of Health with a form that wants to ensure that they can meet the minimum requirements for vaccine distribution,” Garrow said. “There is no fiscal contract between the city and any COVID vaccine provider because the city has not received any money from the federal government to distribute vaccine.”
Health Secretary, dr. Thomas Farley, said the Department of Public Health “will see what additional things we can do to investigate any organization that works with us.”
“In retrospect, this organization was not good for us to have a partnership with the organization,” Farley said.
A spokesman for Jim Kenney, mayor, declined to comment further.
Garrow did not immediately respond to a request for a list of organizations that received COVID-19 doses from the city, or how many doses were given to each.
Out of the 6,950 doses given by Philly Fighting COVID, city health officials have records for 6,757 administered. There are 193 that are not accounted for.
Doroshin did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement released on Twitter, Doroshin said “we understand there have been legitimate inquiries about our privacy policy.”
“I apologize for the error in our privacy policy,” the statement said. “We have never sold or shared or distributed any data we collected as it violates HIPAA rules.”
“We’re here for Philly,” he added.
The city received more than 132,000 doses as of Tuesday. Of these, 90,600 were administered as first doses and 24,000 as second doses.
The city is expected to receive 20,000 doses each week until the end of February.
Farley promised that everyone who received their first dose through Philly Fighting COVID would still receive their second dose on time.
He also said Philly Fighting COVID told the city that they do not intend to sell the data.
‘We are working with our legal department to see if there is any way we can ensure this does not happen, and now [Philly Fighting COVID is] and said the information was not disclosed, “Farley said.
On Monday night, the company added a privacy policy and service agreement to its website. It also removed a page containing the staff, including Doroshin. However, the page is still 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 page.
Despite Farley’s assurance and a bold statement on the website that reads: ‘* The company will not sell data to any parties, “the language of the privacy policy is less clear.
“We may share or transfer your personal information in connection with, or during negotiations on, any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition of all or part of our business to another company,” reads the policy below. a section called “For Business Transfers.”
Two law enforcement officials, Attorney General Josh Shapiro and District Attorney Larry Krasner, both said on Twitter that anyone who believes they know about the abuse of vaccines to reach out to their offices.