Whistleblower says Americans are at risk as U.S. lacks plan.
Trump says Rick Bright looked like an ‘angry, disgruntled employee’
Washington — Despite White House claims, the U.S. still lacks a comprehensive battle plan against the coronavirus in critical areas including masks, testing, treatments and vaccines, whistleblower Rick Bright warned Thursday in testimony before a House committee. “Our window of opportunity is closing,” he declared.
The nation could face “the darkest winter in modern history” if the virus rebounds, the government vaccine scientist told lawmakers. Bright’s appearance came after his ouster last month as head of a Health and Human Services biodefense agency, an action he alleges was retaliation by the Trump administration.
“We need still a comprehensive plan, and everyone across the government and everyone in America needs to know what that plan is, and what role they play,” he told the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “There are critical steps that we need to do to prepare ... we do not still have enough personal protective equipment to manage our health care workers ... we still do not have the supply chains ramped up for the drugs and vaccines, and we still don’t have plans in place for how we distribute those drugs and vaccines. We still do not have a comprehensive testing strategy.”
At the White House, President Donald Trump said Bright looked like an “angry, disgruntled employee,” and Bright’s boss, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, said, “Everything he is complaining about was achieved.”
“So this is like somebody who was in a choir and is now trying to say he was a soloist back then,” Azar added.
Trump said later, at a Pennsylvania medical equipment distributor, that the U.S. is ramping up production of COVID-19-related items and that his goal “is to produce everything America needs for ourselves and then export to the world, including medicines.”
Bright spoke in measured tones and rarely raised his voice during five hours of questioning. He didn’t question the fact that there’s now an all-out effort, financed by billions in taxpayer dollars, to procure masks and other supplies, develop better tests and treatments and discover an effective vaccine. His point was that those efforts aren’t being fitted together in a coherent strategy that will get supplies and medicines to where they’re most needed to protect people and prevent shortages and price gouging.