Dr. Rick Bright, who led the agency tasked with creating a coronavirus vaccine, is alleging that he was demoted for not bowing to pressure to direct money toward hydroxychloroquine, and has hired Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, who became known for representing Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, to make his case.
Bright, the now-former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), said in a statement Wednesday that he was also removed as deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response and instead given a smaller position at the National Institutes of Health.
Bright told the New York Times that he believed his removal was due to his internal opposition to expanding access to and investing in the malaria treatment, which had been touted by President Trump. Sources close to Health and Human Services officials, however, told Politico that the newly dismissed doctor supported acquiring tens of millions of doses of those drugs in internal communications.
One official told the outlet that Bright praised the acquisition of those drugs as a win for the health department in an email exchange, causing confusion about his stance on the drug that he says caused his ouster.
“If Bright opposed hydroxychloroquine, he certainly didn’t make that clear from his email — quite the opposite,” the official said.
But Bright, according to the Times, claims he was pressured to rush access to the drug after Trump and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison had a conversation about chloroquines.
After that conversation, he alleges, he was directed to put a nationwide expanded access program in place to make the drugs available without specific controls in place.
Bright has hired Katz and Banks, who represented Blasey Ford when she testified against the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh with claims of sexual misconduct. The attorneys say they plan to ask for an investigation into Bright’s reassignment.
Banks and Katz called Bright’s change in position “retaliation, plain and simple.”
But Trump administration and HHS officials offer a different recounting of events.
Bright’s departure may have come abruptly, five HHS officials tell Politico, but the move was more than a year in the making.
The doctor clashed repeatedly with department leaders, specifically the assistant health secretary for preparedness and response, about his decisions and the scope of his authority.
Officials described Bright as a polarizing figure within HHS, where his management style was described as confrontational, according to the Times.
Talks about moving Bright came to a head last week when internal emails were leaked showing discussions about chloroquines.
For HHS Secretary Alex Azar, Bright’s decision to release the statement appeared to come as a surprise, as he described the doctor’s move as a promotion to coronavirus task force members during their Wednesday White House meeting, specifically Vice President Mike Pence.
After leaving the meeting, Bright’s statement accusing the government of retaliation went public.
Trump, when asked about Bright during the daily coronavirus briefing Wednesday, said he did not know him.
“You just mentioned the name, I never heard of him. When did this happen? I never heard of him. The guy says he was pushed out of a job. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn’t; I’d have to hear the other side. I don’t know who he is,” he told reporters.
The White House declined comment to The Post.
A spokesperson for HHS told The Post of Bright’s reassignment, “Dr. Bright has departed BARDA to NIH where he’ll work on development and deployment of novel point-of-care testing platforms. As it relates to chloroquine, it was Dr. Bright who requested an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for donations of chloroquine that Bayer and Sandoz recently made to the Strategic National Stockpile for use on COVID-19 patients. The EUA is what made the donated product available for use in combating COVID-19.”