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The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

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Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#91

Post by alasdair_ »

logicchop wrote: post #83
colechristensen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was once involved with a young woman in a homeless program which was entirely defeated by this exact "wrong person" attitude. Get a homeless person an apartment? Great. But it didn't end there, there was a constant stream of documentation requirements, your employer had to, monthly, sign paperwork about how much you earned (advertise to employers that you are/were homeless). The program punished you for making mone…

Fraud is real, and vast, and if it creeps in it undermines the whole thing. What's the alternative?

Universal basic income.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#92

Post by ascagnel_ »

colechristensen wrote: post #61
nathancahill wrote: post #3

Spent a long time reading about how vast bureaucratic inefficiencies are created by people worrying that "the wrong person" will benefit from government programs or that someone "undeserving" might get theirs before I do. This falls squarely in that bucket. Tragic.

I was once involved with a young woman in a homeless program which was entirely defeated by this exact "wrong person" attitude. Get a homeless person an apartment? Great. But it didn't end there, there was a constant stream of documentation requirements, your employer had to, monthly, sign paperwork about how much you earned (advertise to employers that you are/were homeless). The program punished you for making mone…

A lot of this comes from the Reagan-era idea of "welfare queens" -- that because the idea of "government handouts" are so enticing, people will cheat the system to get them.

There are two issues with this:

- "government handouts" and a reliance on welfare are typically a symptom, not a root cause, of an ailing society -- there are bigger issues at play around wealth and ownership if a large segment of the population needs government assistance

- "welfare queens" is largely a fiction -- the story comes from Linda Taylor[0], a woman who cheated the welfare system, but was caught, tried, and served prison time for her fraud. In other words, the system worked, but anyone relying on government assistance should be punished for it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Taylor

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#93

Post by fortran77 »

We have a caste system here in the U.S. and he violated its boundries! We've all seen the reports of the California committees composed of dozens of non-medical people who spend their time ranking the population while vaccine sits in the freezer. For example:

https://thearcca.org/california-establishes-vaccine-advisory...

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#94

Post by Grimm1 »

kiba wrote: post #78
asmos7 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our education in the US is in the same position. We spend far more time, energy and money on problematic students who don't give a rip than we do on dedicated/motivated students. The goal posts aren't there. If a certain number of students fail it creates red flags for the district and if those students are a certain minority that can viewed as evidence of institutional racism and open up legal liabilities as such th…

Chance are, the dedicated/motivated students likely have a far more supportive environment than the kids on the bottom. Increasing resources and support to the top kids will surely increase inequality, while also improving the top's capabilities. Meanwhile, the kids at the bottom get left behind.

In US "gifted" education, we take top performers and throw them into more rigorous study without any real decent support, at least in public schools. I was in the gifted program and I assure you we have no more support, at home, or at school -- you were just expected to do more. Both of my parents worked and relied on the school's aftercare program to support me. It did not do wonders for a 10-12 year old.

I turned out relatively fine but I would rank my time in the "gifted" program as an active harm to that from what I remember.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#95

Post by valarauko »

ivanbakel wrote: post #42
rjbwork wrote: post #5

This is just Kafkaesque. People in a position of authority with blind adherence to rules intended for optimal scenarios. They're literally saying he should have just thrown them away instead of distributing them as best he was able. This whole thing is a logistical clusterfuck and they're trying to throw this dude under the bus. It's obscene.

> They're literally saying he should have just thrown them away instead of distributing them as best he was able. I wouldn't necessarily object to that particular policy. It's a shame to waste perfectly good medicine in a pandemic, but would we feel the same if he had not found anybody vulnerable who was available, and instead ended up vaccinating his own children, who are fit and healthy? What if, instead, he taken…

> It's a shame to waste perfectly good medicine in a pandemic, but would we feel the same if he had not found anybody vulnerable who was available, and instead ended up vaccinating his own children, who are fit and healthy?

If he'd made an honest attempt at offering it to vulnerable people first and couldn't find any takers, then I'd be fine with him giving it to his healthy children.

> What if, instead, he taken the vaccine vial to Beverly Hills and called up the rich and famous to try and find someone who wanted to be vaccinated?

That's worse, but I think it's unfair to offer these as the comparisons to what he actually did - offered it to first responders, healthcare workers, and finally the most vulnerable people he could find, all on his own time, money, and effort.

> * But the motivation for the prosecution is understandable - a distribution policy exists to protect the equity of society, and bureaucracy is meant to be a guarantee of that equity. *

Unfortunately, "equity" is a nebulous term here. The bureaucracy took one look at the list of names, saw a bunch of brown South Asian names and assumed this was unfair - why? Was their net worth written next to them? Could they have taken this step with a latino doctor and all the names were latino names - or with a black doctor?

> a distribution policy exists to protect the equity of society

Not really - the policy was exists in most places heavily favors the most vulnerable, not equitable racial distribution. There is some overlap between those two groups, for sure.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#96

Post by abfan1127 »

mchusma wrote: post #79
nathancahill wrote: post #3

Spent a long time reading about how vast bureaucratic inefficiencies are created by people worrying that "the wrong person" will benefit from government programs or that someone "undeserving" might get theirs before I do. This falls squarely in that bucket. Tragic.

This is why I generally support universal basic income if it could replace the US safety net. Currently we spend more than it would take to eliminate poverty if we just gave it away. But the beauracratic machine just destroys so much wealth.

> the bureaucratic machine just destroys so much wealth

that can be said enough!

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#97

Post by Grustaf »

zamadatix wrote: post #68
rjbwork wrote: post #5

This is just Kafkaesque. People in a position of authority with blind adherence to rules intended for optimal scenarios. They're literally saying he should have just thrown them away instead of distributing them as best he was able. This whole thing is a logistical clusterfuck and they're trying to throw this dude under the bus. It's obscene.

I think the logic is reasonable but the response is too strong. A doctor driving around vaccinating whoever he can find at their house is clearly not how you want to distribute the vaccine in early December, it's not going to get to the most at risk people as soon as it can and any issues that arise are a huge liability problem unless he can fix it with what's in his car. At the same time not having any plan or proce…

Presumably the fact that you're not allowed to drive around an give away the remaining doses like this is calculated to make doctors be more careful about when the open batches.

After all, vaccination is not an emergency treatment, so it should be easy to avoid the situation in the article.

If the rules were changed to allow for this, you can easily imagine that some less ethical doctors would decide to break seals just before closing the clinic, and then vaccinating their family and friends because "it would be a shame to waste it".

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#98

Post by crispyambulance »

treis wrote: post #57
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a specific alternative option you have in mind? The article mentions that he tried vaccinating everyone in the clinic and called the county to ask; I'm legitimately unsure what else he could have done to find people.

>Is there a specific alternative option you have in mind Go to the nearest grocery store/ Firehouse / police station and give them to front line workers.

That sounds superficially reasonable, but would you get what appears to be a vaccination from some random stranger that shows up with a syringe?

He distributed the vaccine to people that knew him (or were in his social network) in the very limited time he had left.

The DA who pursued this should be dis-barred.

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#99

Post by eutropia »

logicchop wrote: post #83
colechristensen wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was once involved with a young woman in a homeless program which was entirely defeated by this exact "wrong person" attitude. Get a homeless person an apartment? Great. But it didn't end there, there was a constant stream of documentation requirements, your employer had to, monthly, sign paperwork about how much you earned (advertise to employers that you are/were homeless). The program punished you for making mone…

Fraud is real, and vast, and if it creeps in it undermines the whole thing. What's the alternative?

> and vast ...* [citation needed]

Fraud does happen. But it doesn't happen enough for it to be worth setting up an entire bureaucracy to prevent it. Especially if that bureaucracy undermines the value of the program for everyone who's faithfully making use of the services in the intended manner.

More and more, it seems that keeping social welfare programs inefficient is benefiting the people who want to remove them entirely (in favor of lowering taxes).

Re: The Vaccine Had to Be Used. He Used It. He Was Fired

#100

Post by smnrchrds »

vlovich123 wrote: post #22

> Late last month, a judge dismissed the charge as groundless, after which the local district attorney vowed to present the matter to a grand jury Considering that grand juries would indict a ham sandwhich, this seems like the prosecutor is reaching just to prolong the process and pain this doctor is going through. Even assuming the best case argument for the prosecutor that he did “steal it”, he vaccinated 10 people…

> Considering that grand juries would indict a ham sandwhich

I am not American. When I hear about grand juries in American media, it is usually when they refuse to indict in a case of brutality or killing by police officers, even though there is clear evidence about the incident. It seems that grand juries never indict anyone, not the other way around. Where do grand juries' biases lie in reality?

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