Ousted whistleblower says Trump health official played down coronavirus threat

Rick Bright says that he warned about the virus in January and was met with hostility from Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and other high-ranking officials

Rick Bright, recently ousted director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, is seen in his official government handout portrait photo from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services taken in Washington.

The ousted director of a U.S. agency responsible for developing drugs to fight the coronavirus pandemic filed a whistleblower’s complaint on Tuesday accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of retaliating when he raised concerns.

Rick Bright says in the complaint filed with a government watchdog that he warned about the virus in January and was met with hostility from Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and other high-ranking officials in the agency.

“Dr. Bright acted with urgency to begin to address this pandemic but encountered resistance from HHS leadership, including Secretary Azar, who appeared intent on downplaying this catastrophic threat,” reads the complaint, which his lawyers filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

The U.S. coronavirus death toll, now over 70,000, is the world’s highest. Democratic politicians and some fellow Republicans have criticized Trump for playing down the threat of the virus.

Mr. Bright’s lawyers argue that his removal as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a division of HHS, violated a federal law protecting government whistleblowers.

An HHS spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Bright will testify before a U.S. House of Representatives panel on May 14, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bright said on Twitter on Tuesday.

Mr. Bright, an expert in vaccines and therapeutics, was named to the post in 2016 before Mr. Trump took office as president.

HHS said last month that Mr. Bright had been moved to a public-private partnership under the National Institutes of Health.

Mr. Bright said in a statement last month that he was demoted and reassigned to another position in part because he resisted efforts to push hydroxychloroquine and the related chloroquine as cures for COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the coronavirus.

Mr. Bright said in the statement that the U.S. government has promoted the medicines as a “panacea” even though they “clearly lack scientific merit.”

Mr. Trump repeatedly touted the malaria drugs as a treatment for coronavirus though few studies suggest a possible benefit.

Mr. Bright’s complaint seeks his reinstatement and requests a full investigation.

In his complaint, Mr. Bright says his tensions with HHS leadership pre-dated the coronavirus. Since 2017 he had been protesting cronyism and award of contracts to companies with political connections to the administration, the complaint says.

The Office of Special Counsel, an independent U.S. government agency, investigates and can prosecute abuses against federal employees.