Whistleblower complaint set to lift lid on Trump pressure to push untried drug

Source: The Guardian

Whistleblower complaint set to lift lid on Trump pressure to push untried drug

Oliver Milman

Published on Fri 1 May 2020 05.00 BST

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There is building anticipation over the content of an upcoming whistleblower complaint by Dr Rick Bright, who last week was abruptly removed as the head of the federal government office working on a vaccine for Covid-19.
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Bright, a vaccines expert, has claimed he was removed as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda) because he resisted an effort to expand the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to treat Covid-19. The drugs, approved to treat malaria, have yet to be proven effective for this new use but have been repeatedly promoted by Trump, who has called them a “game-changer”.
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Bright’s lawyers, Lisa Banks and Debra Katz, subsequently claimed their client was pushed out of his job solely because he “resisted efforts to provide unfettered access to potentially dangerous drugs, including chloroquine, a drug promoted by the administration as a panacea, but which is untested and possibly deadly when used improperly”.

It is expected that Bright’s complaint, when revealed, will shed new light on the political pressure exerted by the Trump administration on health officials to back up the president’s sweeping praise of the drugs as a key weapon against Covid-19.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/30/trump-whistleblower-coronavirus-drug-complaint-rick-bright-hydroxychloroquine-pressure