BARDA Shake Up May Prompt Broad Review Of Politicization of Countermeasures Office

Rick Bright is requesting an inspector general investigation into his removal as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development, accusing the Trump administration of favoring politics over science when making COVID-19 funding decisions. 

The recently transferred head of the US federal agency responsible for running key COVID-19 vaccine efforts with the drug industry said Wednesday that his abrupt demotion came after he cautioned against directing federal funding to coronavirus treatments that lacked scientific merit and pushed back against green-lighting the widespread use of two anti-malarial drugs championed by President Donald Trump.

Rick Bright who was removed Tuesday from his post as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response said in a statement he will request the Health and Human Services Inspector General investigate the politicization of BARDA.

“Rushing blindly towards unproven drugs can be disastrous and result in countless more deaths. Science, in service to the health and safety of the American people, must always trump politics,” he wrote.

BARDA’s COVID-19 works includes two major vaccine partnerships with Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson  (Also see "Two Companies, Two BARDA Contracts, Two Approaches To Coronavirus" - Pink Sheet, 18 Feb, 2020.).

Bright will move to a new position working on diagnostics at the National Institutes of Health. Gary Disbrow, Bright’s former deputy, will serve as the acting director of the office.

Bright, who assumed the BARDA leadership role in November 2016, had been with BARDA for a decade. He joined in 2010 as the lead of the influenza division internal program. He previously worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at drug companies, Altea Therapeutics Corp. and Novavax Inc.. He described his demotion as a result of disagreements with political leaders.

Bright said Wednesday he was “involuntarily transferred to a more limited and less impactful position,” at the NIH as a result of his “insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COIVD-19 pandemic into safety and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit.”

He said he “clash[ed]” with HHS political leadership over “efforts to invest early in vaccines,” and “resisted efforts to fund potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections.”

In particular, Bright said he insisted that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which have been promoted by Trump, be provided only to hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19. Asked for comment, HHS told the Pink Sheet that “it was Dr. Bright who requested an Emergency Use Authorization” from FDA for for the two drugs. (Also see "FDA's Emergency Use Authorization for Malaria Drugs Could Hinder Trials of Other COVID-19 Treatments" - Pink Sheet, 30 Mar, 2020.)

President Trump Wednesday evening largely dismissed questions about Bright’s transfer, saying he had never heard of him during the White House's nightly news conference on the pandemic. NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci also declined to comment on the circumstances of Bright’s transfer but said he feels public health experts at NIH are able to freely express their views.

Regardless of the reasons for Bright's transfer – one former Trump HHS official told the Pink Sheet that the administration had been trying to move Bright to a new role for two years due to perceived failures of his management ability – the public spat about his ouster will be at the least a distraction from the government's efforts to address the coronavirus outbreak.

Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb tweeted praise for Bright on Tuesday evening. “At BARDA, Rick Bright was an outstanding partner to me, to FDA, and to our shared public health goals; including the approval of a historic treatment for smallpox and a vaccine for Ebola,” Gottlieb said. “I look forward to his continued contributions to advance the health and safety of our nation.”