Ousted US government scientist files whistleblower complaint over Covid-19 concerns

A US government scientist has filed a whistleblower complaint alleging he was ousted from his position after raising concerns that the Trump administration wanted to “flood” coronavirus hotspots like New York and New Jersey with a malaria drug that Donald Trump was pushing despite scant scientific evidence it helped.

Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, filed the complaint on Tuesday with the Office of Special Counsel, a government agency responsible for whistleblower complaints. He alleges he was reassigned to a lesser role because he resisted political pressure to allow widespread use of hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug favored by the president.

Bright also said the Trump administration rejected his warnings on Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Bright said he “acted with urgency” to address the growing spread of Covid-19 after the World Health Organization issued a warning in January.

He said he “encountered resistance from HHS leadership, including health and human services secretary [Alex] Azar, who appeared intent on downplaying this catastrophic event”.

Bright alleges in the complaint that political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services had tried to promote hydroxychloroquine “as a panacea”. The officials also “demanded that New York and New Jersey be ‘flooded’ with these drugs, which were imported from factories in Pakistan and India that had not been inspected by the FDA”, the complaint says.

But Bright opposed broad use of the drug. He felt an urgent need to tell the public that there wasn’t enough scientific evidence to support using the drugs for Covid-19 patients, the complaint states.

In a statement issued late last month, Bright said: “While I am prepared to look at all options and to think ‘outside the box’ for effective treatments, I rightly resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public.”

Last month, the US Food and Drug Administration warned doctors against prescribing the drug except in hospitals and research studies. In an alert, regulators flagged reports of sometimes fatal heart-related side-effects among coronavirus patients taking hydroxychloroquine or the related drug chloroquine.

The decades-old drugs, also prescribed for lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, can cause a number of side-effects, including heart rhythm problems, severely low blood pressure and muscle or nerve damage.

Associated Press contributed to this report