Vaccination expert accuses CDC and Deloitte of stealing vaccine tracker idea



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Eventually, she partnered with a software developer to create an online app called ReadiConsent, which won an award in 2018 from the National Adult and Influenza Immunization Summit, a coalition that joins the CDC to improve vaccine uptake. . The product garnered so much attention that in January 2020 it convened a consortium of 30 states interested in purchasing ReadiConsent.

According to the cease and desist letter, on March 13 – the same day that President Donald J. Trump declared the pandemic a national emergency – Ms Tate approached officials she knew at the CDC to tell them that she was updating her platform. , and that she had a software company with extensive government experience ready to upgrade it for “nationwide deployment.”

The following month, she introduced PrepMod to the American Immunization Registry Association, which was researching various software platforms for possible use in a mass immunization campaign, and to CDC officials, at meetings where Deloitte was present. The meetings included “a slide presentation and screenshots of PrepMod with detailed explanations of current and planned features,” the letter said.

Shortly thereafter, the agency inquired about the cost. “It was very clear that they were very excited about what I was presenting to them and they told me they had nothing else,” Ms. Tate said during the interview.

In May, CDC awarded Deloitte a $ 15.9 million contract, about $ 600,000 more than Ms. Tate had asked for. He has since granted the company an additional $ 28 million for VAMS.

After the initial contract was awarded with Deloitte, Ms. Tate said, she contacted the company to form a partnership with her. Instead, according to her complaint, they tried to hire her to “work on the very software and project that she had already developed and created.” But the offer required her to sign a “waiver,” part of a nondisclosure agreement, and she declined.

His attorney, Howard A. Newman, said they were still awaiting a substantive response from the government; under federal law, they must wait six months before filing a complaint. Ms Tate said she was trying to move on: “I’m really busy helping people save lives. That’s my main focus right now and this kind of litigation – we’ll just see how it goes. “

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