Scientist says he was ousted by White House for refusing to promote anti-malaria drug

A federal scientist filed a whistleblower complaint Tuesday with the Office of Special Counsel, saying he was ousted by the White House in a dispute over the use of an anti-malaria drug as a treatment for coronavirus, according to The New York Times.

Dr. Rick Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, alleged in the complaint that his warnings against the use of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 were ignored, the NYT reported. The complaint says Bright was demoted after he resisted political pressure from Health and Human Services leadership to allow widespread use of the drug, according to the Associated Press.

A top official at HHS pressured Bright to direct contracts to a client of a lobbyist gunning for the promotion of hydroxychloroquine in hard-hit areas, including New York and New Jersey, according to the NYT and AP.

“Bright said he resisted efforts to extend a contract with a company whose CEO, he was told, was a friend of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior adviser at the White House,” USA Today reported.

Bright says he resisted “flooding” those areas with the drug because there wasn’t enough scientific evidence backing the idea that hydroxychloroquine was an effective treatment for COVID-19, AP reported.

The complaint says HHS leaders retaliated against Bright “for his objections and resistance to funding potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections and by the administration itself,” according to USA Today. HHS leadership removed Bright from his position as BARDA director and transferred him to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and “unleashed a baseless smear campaign against him,” the complaint says.

After attempting to alert health officials about the issues with hydroxychloroquine through the proper channels to no avail, “Dr. Bright concluded that he had a moral obligation to the American public… to protect it from drugs which he believed constituted a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety,” the complaint says.

Bright also claims in the complaint that he expressed concerns with the White House about the coronavirus as far back as January, USA Today reported. His warnings about the need to increase production of personal protective equipment were ignored by the administration, according to USA Today.

The complaint says that “despite Dr. Bright’s efforts to ensure that the U.S. government dedicated the appropriate resources and expert personnel to combat this deadly virus, HHS political leadership leveled baseless criticisms against him for his proactive efforts to invest early in vaccine development as well as in critical supplies such as masks, respirators, and swabs, which were in short supply and would be necessary to combat COVID-19,” according to the document obtained by the NYT.

Bright says HHS Secretary Alex Azar actively downplayed the “catastrophic event,” AP reported. President Donald Trump claims he did not know Bright and was not aware of his accusations, according to USA Today.

This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 2:26 PM with the headline "Scientist says he was ousted by White House for refusing to promote anti-malaria drug."