Trump’s Health Secretary Azar played DOWN threat of coronavirus, whistleblower scientist claims
A TOP government scientist said Health Secretary Alex Azar downplayed the coronavirus threat in an explosive whistleblower complaint.
Dr Rick Bright blamed Azar for the response delay and said he was ousted for pushing back on using the untested drug hydroxychloroquine to treat , according to his bombshell claim.
His complaint filed with the Office of Special Counsel states that when Bright pushed back against officials wanting to "flood" hard-hit areas like with hydroxychloroquine, he was downgraded to a lesser role.
Bright said he "encountered resistance from HHS leadership, including Health and Human Services Secretary [Alex] Azar, who appeared intent on downplaying this "
The whistleblower complaint emerged as:
The whistleblower complaint also detailed a February 23 meeting with Azar and Bright's boss, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response Robert Kadlec, who "responded with surprise at [Bright's] dire predictions and urgency, and asserted that the United States would be able to contain the virus and keep it out."
"I witnessed government leadership rushing blindly into a potentially by bringing in a non-FDA approved chloroquine from and , from facilities that had never been approved by the FDA," Bright told journalists on Tuesday.
"Their eagerness to push blindly forward without sufficient data to put this drug into the hands of Americans was alarming to me and my fellow scientists.
However, Bright acknowledged that White House trade adviser Peter Navarro - who authored several urgent memos about the crisis - was extremely disturbed by the news, unlike his colleagues.
Bright described working with Navarro to set up military transport from Italy for swabs needed in the US, according to the shocking complaint.
When Bright was contacted by a in January, the scientist claims he was rebuffed by his HHS colleagues.
"It can help them but it’s not going to hurt them," Trump told reporters during an April 5 coronavirus briefing, after revealing the government purchased 29 million doses.
at the time indicated that and Navarro were at loggerheads over the drug behind closed doors, with the top doc saying it was unproven and based on "anecdotal" evidence.
Regulators have since flagged reports of sometimes fatal heart side effects among COVID patients who take hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine.
But Bright felt he had not been listened to when he voiced his concern about the untested treatment.
"As the death toll mounted exponentially each day, Dr Bright concluded that he had a moral obligation to the American public, including those vulnerable as a result of illness from COVID-19, to protect it from drugs which he believed constituted a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety," the complaint continued.
Trump has repeatedly shifted the blame onto the (WHO), however.