The Office of Special Counsel has determined there are “reasonable grounds” to believe a former top vaccine official was removed from his post last month for retaliatory reasons and plans to recommend the Department of Health and Human Services reinstate him while it investigates, the official’s lawyers said Friday.
Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, was removed April 20 after having served as BARDA director for nearly four years. He was reassigned to a narrower role at the National Institutes of Health that HHS touted as part of a “bold new plan” to improve testing to defeat covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Bright filed a whistleblower complaint this week that alleged he was reassigned because he resisted pressure from the department’s political leadership to make “potentially harmful drugs widely available,” including chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. President Trump has repeatedly pushedboth as possible coronavirus cures. Continue reading.