What underlays the decision to distribute immunizations to major private entities ahead of hospitals and schools is neither a mistake nor an objective assessment of the medical value of such distributions.
The episode demonstrates the supremacy of America’s financial elite, which increasingly dictates every policy decision and every facet of social life, and more and more takes on the trappings of an aristocracy. Any government response to a disaster of nature, disease, or, soon enough, social revolt, will take as its first order of business the preservation of this narrow layer.
The inescapable essence of the matter is this: it is taken for granted in government that the lives and health of the rich are worth more than those of the working class. The vaccine distribution to Goldman Sachs and Citigroup was not “caught” precisely because the banks’ privileged position is assumed.
Yet the arrogance and presumptuousness of the financial aristocracy is itself becoming an explosive factor in the political life of the nation.
This has been reflected in the public reaction to the revelations about the vaccine distribution to Wall Street, and the phony denunciations by the likes of Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd, who has been for many years among the most favored recipients of the finance industry’s campaign contributions.
The allocation of scarce vaccines to the big banks is in fact entirely in keeping with the Obama administration’s response to the economic crisis. The US government has given over trillions to the banking industry to help it profit from the financial collapse of its own making. Meanwhile, the Obama administration refuses any jobs program that would counter mass unemployment, as the official jobless rate surges over 10 percent.
The revelation that Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and others have cornered for themselves a share of the vaccine supply is yet another example of destructive impact of the capitalist market on public health.
Last spring, the Obama administration turned over the production of the vaccine to a handful of large pharmaceutical firms. Because the industry finds vaccines unprofitable, it relies on outdated production methods. This explains the shortage of the vaccine.
via www.wsws.org
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