What to know
- The disclosure that the city did not require contracts for vaccine administrators comes a day after ending the relationship with a company called Philly Fighting COVID.
- The city dismissed Philly Fighting COVID for privacy and data issues after it was learned that the organization is for profit.
- The municipal health secretary said he would look for better ways to “verify” organizations before partnering with them.
An organization called Philly Fighting COVID, led by a 22-year-old researcher at Drexel University, received 6,950 doses of the Philadelphia coronavirus vaccine from the city of Philadelphia before the city abruptly ended the relationship on Monday.
The partnership ended after the city was alerted by the media that Philly Fighting COVID had become a for-profit business. There was concern that the company, founded by Andrei Doroshin, could sell data provided by people seeking the vaccine.
On Tuesday, amid questions about the verification process the Philadelphia Department of Public Health uses 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 vaccine supplier,” said Public Health spokesman James Garrow.
According to him, the city only requires organizations to complete a form.
“All organizations that distribute vaccines in Philadelphia register with the Department of Health with a form that aims to ensure that they can meet the minimum requirements for vaccine distribution,” said Garrow. “There is no tax contract between the city and any supplier of COVID vaccine because the city has not received any money from the federal government to distribute the vaccine.”
Health Secretary Dr. Thomas Farley said the Department of Public Health “will see what kind of additional things we can do to verify any organization that works with us”.
“In retrospect, this organization was not good for us to partner with,” said Farley.
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 administered to Philly Fighting COVID, city health officials registered 6,757 administered. There are 193 that have not been accounted for.
Doroshin did not respond to a request for comment. In a statement released by him on Twitter, Doroshin said that “we understand that there have been legitimate inquiries about our privacy policies”.
“I apologize for the error in our privacy policy,” said the statement. “We never sell and we will never sell, share or disseminate any data we collect, as doing so would violate HIPAA rules.”
“We are here for Philly,” he added.
More than 132,000 doses have already been received by the city hall, until 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 a week by the end of February.
Farley promised that anyone 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 have no intention of selling the data.
“We are working with our Legal Department to see if there is any way to ensure that this does not happen, and now [Philly Fighting COVID is] saying there was no disclosure of that information, “said Farley.
On Monday night, the company added a privacy policy and a terms of service contract to its website. He also removed a page that listed the team, including Doroshin. The page, however, can still be viewed 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 came together to fight this pandemic,” says a line at the top of the team’s page.
Despite Farley’s guarantees and a bold statement on the website that says, “* 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 the negotiations for, any merger, sale of Company assets, financing or acquisition of all or part of Our business to another company,” says the policy in a section called ” For business transfers. “
Two police officers, Attorney General Josh Shapiro and District Attorney Larry Krasner, said on Twitter that anyone who believes they know about the misuse of vaccines should contact their offices.