Dr. Rick Bright says he is the first clear casualty of a White House war on the scientific process, when he was demoted for refusing to invest federal money in an untested coronavirus therapy that President Trump has embraced.
What We Know:
- For weeks, there have been signs that the Trump administration is politicizing science. President Trump has repeatedly extolled the virtues of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid-19.
- Bright says the drug has not been tested as a Covid-19 medication in a placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trial, the scientific gold standard for determining a drug’s efficacy. Some anecdotal evidence has even shown that the drug could potentially do more harm than good for Covid-19 patients.
- Bright added: “I insisted that these drugs be provided only to hospitalised patients with confirmed Covid-19 while under the supervision of a physician. These drugs have potentially serious risks associated with them, including increased mortality observed in some recent studies in patients with Covid-19.”
- Bright also alleges, that he had to resist “efforts to fund potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections.”
- “Sidelining me in the middle of this pandemic and placing politics and cronyism ahead of science puts lives at risk and stunts national efforts to safely and effectively address this urgent public health crisis.”
Bright has reportedly hired lawyers Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, whose clients have included government whistleblowers and Christine Blasey Ford, who went public with allegations of sexual misconduct against Brett Kavanaugh during his supreme court nomination in 2018.
