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NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Some big Wall Street banks are girding against the swine flu, but a flap over how the firms got the vaccine will make them miserable.

The public is outraged about reports that Citi , Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley along with other big New York employers, received hundreds, even thousands, of H1N1 vaccine doses before hospitals and other healthcare providers, many of which have run out of the precious drug.

A spokeswoman for New York City's Department of Health said firms like Goldman are important outlets for reaching at-risk adults.

Clearly someone from the health department should visit a hospital or doctor's office. They might discover that those are also excellent places to reach sick people or those at-risk.

For Goldman Sachs, accused of unfairly benefiting from government bailout funds and its close relationships with administration officials, the problem is especially acute. Though the company said it only had 200 of the 5,400 doses it ordered, it had no plans to give the vaccine back to the government, unlike Morgan Stanley, which received 1,000 doses and is sending them to New York hospitals that need the drug.

Jokes are already circulating on Wall Street about how Goldman will create derivatives out of the few doses it has and begin trading them.

As one reader put it in an email:

As jobless rates keep getting worse

The bankers cut lines to the nurse;

Bad debts they accrue

But when there's swine flu

They finally turn risk-averse.

If it isn't clear by now, Goldman should move some of its so-called "best and brightest" from the trading floor and put them in the public relations office. When a pesky reporter calls to ask what the company is doing with its vaccine, they should answer by saying the only swine flu vaccine they know about is on the way to the orphanage.

- David Weidner