WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The ousted director of a U.S. agency responsible for developing drugs to fight the coronavirus pandemic filed a whistleblower’s complaint on Tuesday accusing President Donald Trump’s administration of retaliating when he raised concerns.
Rick Bright says in the complaint filed with a government watchdog that he warned about the virus in January and was met with hostility from Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar and other high-ranking officials in the agency.
“Dr. Bright acted with urgency to begin to address this pandemic but encountered resistance from HHS leadership, including Secretary Azar, who appeared intent on downplaying this catastrophic threat,” reads the complaint, which his lawyers filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
The U.S. coronavirus death toll, now over 70,000, is the world’s highest. Democratic politicians and some fellow Republicans have criticized Trump for playing down the threat of the virus and then being slow to galvanize the production of testing and protective gear.
Bright’s lawyers argue that his removal as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a division of HHS, violated a federal l