Rick Bright says in whistleblower complaint that his concerns over preparedness for the pandemic were ignored and contracts were awarded based on ‘political favoritism.’
Rick Bright, the former head of a government agency at the heart of the response to coronavirus pandemic in the U.S., alleged in afiled Tuesday that he was transferred from his job after raising concerns over preparedness for the virus and objecting to treatments advocated by the Trump administration, and that the Department of Health and Human Services prioritized contracts based on “political favoritism” and “cronyism.”...
U.S. President Donald Trump listens during a Coronavirus Task Force press briefing in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC on March 30, 2020.Bright’s complaint accuses HHS Secretary Alex Azar of downplaying the threat of COVID-19, and claims Bright’s efforts going back to January to raise alarms over the country’s preparations to deal with the disease were met with"indifference which then developed into hostility" by senior HHS officials.
Bright, who was reassigned last month from his job at the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, says that he warned officials for “months” that the nation was critically short on N95 masks, swabs and syringes, and requested additional funding to develop vaccines. Bright alleges that HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Robert Kadlec put pressure on BARDA to invest in drugs, vaccines and other technologies without proper vetting or that lacked scientific merit, including hydroxychloroquine, which has been advocated as a treatment for COVID-19 by the Trump administration.
Attorneys for Bright say that nearly $100 million in government contracts was awarded to a company whose leader was “friends with Jared Kushner” and had “Hollywood connections,” rather than a company with legitimate scientific credentials.“Dr.
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