An immunization expert has accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and a company called Deloitte of stealing its ideas for a massive vaccination tracker.
A cessation of existence letter August obtained by The New York Times reveals Tiffany Tate, maker of vaccination tracker PrepMod, is seeking $ 15 million in damages after believing the CDC and Deloitte have adopted and implemented its vaccine tracker’s ideas in their own Vaccine Administration Management System (VAMS)
The letter outlines the events that led to the deal with Deloitte and the CDC and claims they obtained details of Tate’s work and then implemented similar features in their own system.
In June, Deloitte even tried to hire Tate to help develop the system it already has, according to PrepMod.
Tate, who has spent her career helping minority vaccinations, told the times that she was “in shock, and I was really heartbroken because I worked with these people all my career and I respected and trusted them. “
Deloitte told The New York Times the claims are “baseless.”
“[VAMS is a] scalable, Salesforce-based application designed to CDC requirements and not based on [Tate’s ideas]”Said spokesman Jonathan Gandel.
Tate started talking to the CDC in March last year when the pandemic started. At a meeting in March, Tate agreed to show the CDC details about PrepMod, the letter said.
After presenting her system to the CDC and Deloitte in April, Tate claims the CDC’s Director of Immunization Information Systems asked about the cost of the system and wanted to meet with Tate’s engineering team.
In May, CDC and Deloitte received details about Tate’s system, with the CDC admitting it was unwilling to take on vaccine distribution with the current system, the letter said. The CDC later unveiled VAMS, which Tate says has a similar structure to PrepMod.
Later in May, when a new feature was added to PrepMod, VAMS is said to have added a similar feature shortly after.
At the end of the month, the CDC offered Deloitte a $ 15.8 million contract “primarily to reproduce PrepMod,” the letter said. The offer was $ 0.5 million more than Tate requested for her system.
Tate’s original plan was to license her system to the CDC so states could receive it for free, but she eventually sold it to states right after the CDC partnered with Deloitte, The New York Times reported.
PrepMod is used in 27 states, while VAMS is used in only 10 states.
The cease-fire calls for an end to all developments in the VAMS system and for all demonstrations of the system to be discontinued.
The Hill has contacted the CDC and Deloitte for comment.