Warnings, mask plans ‘cast aside’
A former top US vaccine official and an executive of a medical mask maker in Texas each told Congress yesterday they believe lives were lost because of missteps by the Trump administration in its early handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Rick Bright, who filed a whistleblower complaint after he was removed from a senior post at the Department of Health and Human Services last month, said his superiors dismissed urgent warnings in January and February about an impending shortage of N95 respirator masks. Bright also said the administration delayed potential work on a US-made vaccine by not acting fast enough or forcefully enough to press China for samples of the virus.
Bright alleged he was reassigned to a lesser post and locked out of his email account as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority after pushing back against plans for the government to invest in unproven Covid-19 treatments such as the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine. The therapeutic that President Donald Trump touted largely has been abandoned by the government as trials since showed it can cause heart problems and other side effects in Covid19 patients.
Bright also went further, painting a bleak picture of the US government’s ability going forward to manage a second wave of the virus if one coincides with the country’s winter flu season.
Bright said there was still ‘‘no master plan’’ for assessing the need for and distribution of masks, testing swabs and other medical equipment. Bright also said the government was doing a disservice to Americans by playing down the possibility that it could take years to develop a vaccine that could be ready for mass distribution.
House Republicans, an HHS spokeswoman and even Trump himself attacked Bright as the day went on.
‘‘I don’t know the so-called Whistleblower Rick Bright,’’ Trump tweeted, ‘‘never met him or even heard of him, but to me he is a disgruntled employee, not liked or respected by people I spoke to and who, with his attitude, should no longer be working for our government!’’
Inside the Capitol, House lawmakers on the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on health wore face masks and spoke into microphones shielded with disposable covers. Many donned rubber gloves, and the witness table was sprayed with disinfectant and wiped down between speakers.
After the cleaning, Mike Bowen, coowner of Prestige Ameritech, the country’s last full-line medical mask manufacturer, took his place at the witness table and recounted how he had offered to HHS to ramp up production of N95 masks in January, but his plan was cast aside.
Bowen had four mothballed manufacturing lines capable of making 7 million N95 masks a month. He said they could be restarted, probably within about 90 days, if the government would commit to a long-term contract so he could hire the 100 or so employees needed.
Emails show an HHS official responded to Bowen on January 22, writing that the government was not ‘‘anywhere near’’ ready to engage in such a plan. Within six weeks, the government would be in a much different posture, searching the globe for masks, seizing shipments and signing contracts for tens of millions to pay novice distributors up to $5.50 per mask, or seven times what Bowen charged the government.
Under questioning, Bowen said that if HHS had taken him up on his offer, he could have been producing an additional 7 million N95 respirators a month by now.
Republicans pressed Bowen on why he hadn’t done so. Bowen said that he had already expanded as much as he could. He had increased production to 2 million a month, up from 75,000, and would soon double that to 4 million a month. Going further and restarting the four lines without a contract of at least a year could force him to hire the more than 100 people, train and then fire them months later.
Bowen also pushed back on Republicans, saying he was troubled by the line of questioning he witnessed all morning.
‘‘I’ve watched all of this a little while ago. It seemed like everyone who was beating up on Dr Bright was a Republican and everyone who was defending him was a Democrat. I’m a Republican, I voted for President Trump and I admire Dr Bright,’’ Bowen said.
Asked later if he was troubled by the administration’s response to the pandemic, including reassigning Bright, Bowen said he had been. ‘‘I’m a lifelong Republican, and I’m embarrassed by how that’s been handled.’’ –