Nothing Bright About It

Do you remember Rick Bright? Of course you don't, because the media has been more focused on Tara Reade.  Dr. Bright is the fellow who had been heading the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which is charged with helping to find a vaccine to stop COVID-19, until Trump removed him from his position after Dr. Bright said that the administration wasn't doing enough to stop the spread of the virus.  On May 5, Dr. Bright officially filed a whstleblower complain, and, because there's apparently nothing Trump can do to stop him from doing so, a committee of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives has called him to testify this Thursday (May 14). The likeliest reason for his dismissal from BARDA was his objection to Trump's promotion of hydroxychloroquine to fight COVID-19, which turned out to be a a not-so-bright (pun sort of intended) idea.

Dr. Bright, a virologist, still works for the government, having been assigned to the National Institutes of Health to help with developing diagnostic testing.  Which is sort of weird, as Dr. Bright had been complaining about the lack of available testing.  Trump has dismissed him as a "disgruntled" employee.

"I am not disgruntled," Bright told CBS News anchor Norah O'Donnell. "I am frustrated at a lack of leadership. I am frustrated at a lack of urgency to get a head start on developing lifesaving tools for Americans. I'm frustrated at our inability to be heard as scientists. Those things frustrate me."

Dr, Bright, who was pushing for more personal protective equipment as far back as January, added that his reassignment was perplexing, given his expertise at vaccines. "To take me out of our organization focused on drugs and vaccines and diagnostics in the middle of a pandemic, of the worst public health crisis that our country's faced in a century," he said to O'Donnell, "and decapitate the BARDA organization. To move me over to a very small focused project of any scale, of any level importance is not responsible. Didn't make sense."

Unless you remember that the guy in the White House is a psychopath.

O'Donnell's interview with Dr. Bright airs on "60 Minutes" on Sunday, May 17.  Don't miss it.