Rick Bright, a top vaccine researcher at the National Institutes of Health, warned Congress on Thursday that the U.S. is risking the “darkest winter in modern history” and that the Trump administration is not prepared to combat the coronavirus pandemic adequately.
He told a House committee that the administration ignored his early warnings about supply shortages and the seriousness of the outbreak, putting the country behind on combating the disease.
Mr. Bright, who was removed from his job as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), says he was the victim of retribution for criticizing President Trump.
He raised alarms about the brewing pandemic, he said, and lives were lost because higher-ups didn’t heed him. He said he faced “hostility and marginalization” from officials at the Department of Health and Human Services who ignored the warnings to start work on a vaccine and to ramp up production of personal protective equipment early on in the outbreak.
HHS Secretary Alex M. Azar II slammed Mr. Bright on Thursday afternoon and said the administration moved swiftly and early on all fronts.
“While we’re launching Operation Warp Speed, he’s not showing up for work to be part of that,” he said, referring to a project to find a vaccine. “So this is like someone who was in a choir and is now trying to say he was a soloist back then. What he was saying is what every single member of this administration and the president saying: We need more personal protective equipment, we need more ventilators, we need therapeutics, we need vaccines.”
Mr. Azar, clearly angry, shouted in rising tones as the president’s helicopter hummed in the background at the White House.
Everything “this president was on, this president achieved,” he said.
Mr. Bright told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that he was getting alerts in January about the medical supply chain starting to dry up and wasn’t believed in early February when he warned HHS about a shortage of N95 masks.
He argued that by not taking those early steps to bolster U.S. supplies, lives were lost early in the outbreak, particularly health care workers on the front lines of the pandemic response.
“We did not forewarn people. We did not train people. We did not educate them on social distancing and wearing a mask as we should have in January and February,” he said. “All those forewarnings, all those educational opportunities, for the American public, could have had an impact in further slowing this outbreak and saving more lives.”
Regarding a vaccine, Mr. Bright cautioned that the 12-18 month time frame to create a vaccine many have touted is “aggressive,” but he does think a cure will be found.
“My concern is if we rush too quickly and consider cutting out critical steps, we may not have a full assessment of the safety of that vaccine, so it’s still going to take some time,” he said.
However, there needs to be a plan to shore up resources, especially if there’s a rebound of cases overlapping with the seasonal flu. Mr. Bright said it was fortunate the coronavirus outbreak began as flu season was starting to end.
“There’s no one company that can produce enough for our country or for the world,” he said. “We need to have a strategy and plan in place now to make sure that we can not only fill that vaccine, make it, distribute it, administer it in a fair and equitable plan.”
Mr. Bright filed a whistleblower complaint last week. He said he was demoted because he clashed with political leaders regarding the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, an existing malaria drug that the president touted not long after the pandemic became the subject of daily press conferences but has since largely dropped.
Republicans, who acknowledged the seriousness of Mr. Bright’s accusations, pressed him on why BARDA wouldn’t at least consider looking into the potential use of the drug, since it was already widely used and there were anecdotal reports of success when used early enough.
Mr. Bright explained that while he was initially open to it, the data that came in didn’t suggest there was enough of a benefit to explore it.
“I tried to track the media and the scientific journals as well. However, I rely on the guidance [of] the science within HHS,” he said. “The first I’d heard of that was from my colleague Dr. [Janet] Woodcock at the FDA, and then a summary report from our scientists at FDA, CDC, NIH and BARDA indicated that the evidence for its benefit was weak and the evidence for its safety concerns was stronger, and they did not believe at that point it was something that should be supported.”
In a letter from the Office of Special Counsel, circulated by Mr. Bright’s lawyers before Thursday’s hearing, investigators found a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing” by HHS, but notes the “investigation is not a final determination that the allegations are substantiated.”
“We need to be truthful with the American people,” Mr. Bright said. “We have the world’s greatest scientists — they must be permitted to lead. Let them speak truthfully without fear of retribution.”
Mr. Trump defended his promotion of hydroxychloroquine, saying there was a “tremendous response” to the drug, before dismissing Mr. Bright’s complaints.
“To me, he is nothing more than a really unhappy disgruntled person,” the president told reporters.
χ Dave Boyer and Tom Howell Jr. contributed to this report.
• Gabriella Muñoz can be reached at gmunoz@washingtontimes.com.
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