This Monday, April 6, 2020 file photo shows an arrangement of hydroxychloroquine pills in Las Vegas. According to a study released on Tuesday, April 21, 2020, the malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in an analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. AP
WASHINGTON 鈥� The head of the US agency in charge of developing a vaccine against coronavirus said Wednesday that he was removed from his job for opposing the chloroquine treatment promoted by President Donald Trump.
Dr. Rick Bright said he was removed on Tuesday as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the government agency for developing and procuring treatments and vaccines, and moved to a lesser position in the National Institutes of Health.
鈥淚 believe this transfer was in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit,鈥� he said in a statement to US media.
He said the move was a direct response to his resistance to 鈥渕isguided directives鈥� to support the use of malaria treatments chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for coronavirus.
Those treatments, he said, were 鈥減romoted by the administration as a panacea,鈥� but 鈥渃learly lack scientific merit.鈥�.
鈥淲hile I am prepared to look at all options and to think 鈥榦utside the box鈥� for effective treatments, I rightly resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public.鈥�
Since mid-March Trump, backed by the conservative Fox 黑料社 channel, has advocated for the use of chloroquine to treat COVID-19 infections, with scant evidence from studies of its safety or effectiveness.
Despite his own science advisors suggesting more study is needed, Trump repeatedly pushed for the drugs鈥� use, claiming the treatment could be a 鈥済ift from God鈥� to counter the coronavirus pandemic.
On Tuesday the results of the largest study yet of hydroxychloroquine, funded by the US government, showed no benefit against the disease over standard care.
And in fact it showed use of hydroxychloroquine was associated with more deaths.
Bright said he would be asking the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate the Trump administration鈥檚 politicization of BARDA and its pressuring scientists to favor companies with political connections.
鈥淪idelining 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,鈥� he said.