What you need to know
- The disclosure that the city did not require contracts for vaccine administrators comes a day after the relationship with a business called Philly Fighting COVID ended.
- The city abandoned Philly Fighting COVID due to privacy and data issues after learning that the organization is for profit.
- The city’s health secretary said he will look for better ways to “review” organizations before collaborating on them.
An organization called Philly Fighting COVID, led by a 22-year-old researcher from Drexel University, received 6,950 doses of the Philadelphia city coronavirus vaccine before the city abruptly ended the relationship on Monday.
The termination of the partnership came after media reports reported from the city that Philly Fighting COVID had become a for-profit business. He worried that the company, founded by Andrei Doroshin, might sell data provided by people looking for 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 provider that gives vaccines,” Public Health spokesman James Garrow said.
He said the city only required organizations to fill out a form.
“All organizations that administer vaccines in Philadelphia register with the Department of Health with a form that seeks to ensure they meet the minimum requirements to distribute the vaccine,” Garrow said. “There is no tax contract between the city and any vaccine provider against COVID because the city has not received 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 kind of additional things we could do to check on any organization that works with us.”
“In retrospect, this organization was not good for us to have a partnership with this organization,” Farley said.
A spokesman for Mayor Jim Kenney declined to comment further.
Garrow did not immediately respond to a request from a list of organizations that have 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 of 6,757 administered. There are 193 that are not yet discovered.
Doroshin has not responded to any requests for comment. In a statement posted on Twitter, Doroshin said that “we understand that there have been legitimate inquiries about our privacy policies.”
“I apologize for the error of our privacy policy,” the statement said. “We will never sell, share or disseminate the data we collect, as it would violate HIPAA regulations.”
“We’re here for Philly,” he added.
As of Tuesday, the city has received more than 132,000 doses. Of these, 90,600 were administered as first doses and 24,000 as second doses.
The city expects to receive 20,000 doses each week by the end of February.
Farley promised that anyone who received their first dose through Philly Fighting COVID would still get their second dose on time.
He also said Philly Fighting COVID has told the city they have no intention of selling the data.
“We’re working with our Law Department to see if there’s any way to ensure this doesn’t happen, and right now [Philly Fighting COVID is] saying this information has not been published, “Farley said.
On Monday evening, the company added a privacy policy and a service terms agreement to its website. He also deleted a page showing staff, including Doroshin. The page, however, can still be viewed in a cached version of the site.
WHYY first reported the end of the partnership between the city and Philly Fighting COVID.
“We are a group of nerds, engineers and scientists who have come together to fight this pandemic,” according to a line on the team’s page.
Despite Farley’s assurances and a bold statement on the website that says, “* THE COMPANY WILL NOT SELL DATA ANYWHERE, “the language of the privacy policy is less clear.
“We may share or transfer your personal information in connection with, or during negotiations for, any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition of all or part of our business to another company,” it states. to politics under 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 believed they knew about the misuse of vaccines to get to their offices.