Ousted whistleblower warns US facing ‘darkest
winter in modern history’
Rick Bright testified before congressional committee
that as virus spreads in US the ‘window is closing to address this pandemic’
Oliver
Milman in New York
@olliemilman
Thu 14 May
2020 19.31 BSTLast modified on Thu 14 May 2020 20.57 BST
Americans
should brace themselves for the risk that they will suffer their “darkest
winter in modern history” due to the ongoing federal government failures in
addressing the coronavirus pandemic, a recently ousted public health official
turned whistleblower warned the US Congress.
Rick
Bright, who was removed from his role heading a federal agency in charge of
vaccines last month, told a congressional committee on Thursday that as the
virus continues to spread in the US the “window is closing to address this
pandemic” because the Trump administration still lacks a comprehensive plan to
tackle Covid-19.
“Time is
running out because the virus is still spreading everywhere, people are getting
restless to leave their homes,” Bright told the lawmakers, many wearing masks
or bandannas over their faces. In written testimony, he added that without a
proper response “I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged,
causing unprecedented illness and fatalities”.
Bright was
director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority for
nearly four years but was shifted from the role in April. In a whistleblower
complaint, Bright has claimed he was removed after resisting pressure by the
administration to make “potentially harmful drugs widely available”, including
chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine.
These two
anti-malarial drugs have been repeatedly touted as a treatment for Covid-19 by
Donald Trump, despite them not going through clinical trials for this use and
mixed results in initial studies on their efficacy.
The US
president has also publicly pondered the benefits of injecting disinfectants
into patients, a statement widely condemned as dangerous by public health
officials and bleach manufacturers.
In his
testimony to Congress, Bright wrote that “science, not politics or cronyism,
must lead the way to combat this deadly virus”. He added: “Without clear
planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have
outlined, 2020 will be darkest winter in modern history.”
The warning
came as Covid-19 deaths continued to mount in the US, with more than 83,000
people perishing from the virus, which has infected more than 1.3 million to
make the US the world’s most serious coronavirus hotspot.
Mass
joblessness has swept the US as businesses shut down to slow the pandemic, with
36 million people filing for unemployment benefits in the past two months.
This death
toll would probably be much lower had the Trump administration acted far more
quickly to address the crisis, Bright told the hearing. He said his efforts to
obtain early viral samples from China was met with “frustration and dismissal”
from leaders in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Bright
claimed he also agitated for a greater stockpile of masks, swabs and other
urgently needed medical equipment but was met with “indifference” and was then
sidelined. “I was told that my urgings were causing a commotion and I was
removed from those meetings,” he said.
Bright said
the gravity of the unfolding crisis was made clear to him by an email from the
co-owner of Prestige Ameritech, a manufacturer of N95 respiratory masks. “He
said: ‘We are in deep shit, the world is, and we need to act,’” Bright told
lawmakers.
“I pushed
that forward to the highest levels I could at HHS and got no response. From
that moment I knew we’d have a crisis with our healthcare workers because we
were not taking action. That was our last window of opportunity to turn on that
production to save the lives of those healthcare workers and we didn’t act.”
In a
statement, HHS said it “strongly disagrees” with the “one-sided arguments and
misinformation” contained in Bright’s whistleblower complaint.
Trump used
his favoured medium of Twitter on Thursday morning to repeat his claim that he
had never heard of the “so-called Whistleblower Rick Bright”. The president
then added that “to me he is a disgruntled employee, not liked or respected by
people I spoke to and who, with his attitude, should no longer be working for
our government!”
The attack
was Trump’s second in two days on a senior infectious disease expert. On
Wednesday, he criticized Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for warning against restarting economic
activity too quickly.
Fauci
testified at a hearing on Tuesday that the coronavirus was still out of control
in the US and rushing to reopen before numbers of new cases and deaths were on
a steady decline risked “serious consequences”. He remarked the night before
that premature reopening risked “needless suffering and death”.
Fauci also
stressed to US senators the unknown effects the coronavirus could have on
children returning to reopened schools.
“I was
surprised by his answer,” Trump told reporters. “To me it’s not an acceptable
answer, especially when it comes to schools.”
On
Thursday, a small but heavily armed group of protesters gathered outside the
state capitol building in Lansing, Michigan, demanding the end of stay-at-home
orders and calling for the resignation of the governor.
Michigan
closed down its capitol and canceled its legislative session rather than face
the possibility of the armed militia members disrupting business, amid a flurry
of online death threats against the Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer.
Such
protests broke out in Michigan first and then spread to other states in recent
weeks, despite opinion polls showing a majority of Americans do not support
widespread reopening for business while the pandemic is still raging. The
protests were coordinated and also backed by various rightwing groups.
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