Former Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) Director Rick Bright will be filing a whistleblower complaint over his removal from his post after he defied White House pressures on the malaria and lupus drug chloroquine, which is now used to treat novel coronavirus COVID-19 patients, his lawyers said
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th April, 2020) Former Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) Director Rick Bright will be filing a whistleblower complaint over his removal from his post after he defied White House pressures on the malaria and lupus drug chloroquine, which is now used to treat novel coronavirus COVID-19 patients, his lawyers said.
"We will soon be filing a complaint both with the Office of Special Counsel and the HHS IG [Department of Health and Human Services Inspector-General] on behalf of Dr. Rick Bright detailing the retaliatory treatment to which he was subjected by the HHS political leadership," Bright's lawyers Debra Katz and Lisa Banks said in a statement on Thursday.
Bright was fired after raising science-based concerns about White House pressure on treatment and vaccines related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the statement said.
"The [Trump] administration is now making demonstrably false statements about Dr. Bright, one of the nation's leading vaccine drug and diagnostic experts to deflect attention from its removal of him as Director of BARDA," Katz and Banks said.
On Wednesday, Bright alleged that his sudden ouster was retaliatory and stemmed in part from his opposition to widening the availability of chloroquine or hydrohycloroquine despite what he said were its dubious scientific merits after President Donald Trump had publicly promoted the drug.
