A science official delivered a charge before the US Congress Thursday against the Trump administration and his response to the health crisis, after being sacked from a health agency, he said for political reasons.
Rick Bright, whose copy of the testimony had been diffused the day before, warned a committee of the House of Representatives that the United States could know at the end of the year their "Darkest winter" long overdue if nothing was done to better coordinate the fight against the Covid-19 epidemic.
Denouncing the lack of preparation and organization at the top of the state, he believed that the development of an effective vaccine would take " more time " that the twelve to eighteen months regularly mentioned, and pointed to the failure of the Trump administration to provide sufficient protective equipment to medical personnel.
Rick Bright was head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, a government agency responsible for developing treatments and vaccines against Covid-19, until the end of April.
The former official said in particular that he had received an email at the end of January from a manager of a medical supply company, informing him that stocks of masks were running low. "He told me, we are in shit, the whole world is, we must act", reported Mr. Bright. "I passed this information on to the highest level to the health department and got no response. From that moment, I knew that we were going to a crisis for our caregivers. "
Donald Trump refutes the claims of a "so-called whistleblower"
Transferred since to another post, "More limited", he said he was shelved due in part to his opposition to the widespread use of chloroquine, a drug once touted by Donald Trump.
The US president told reporters Thursday that he watched part of the testimony and saw only one "Embittered and discontented person". "I don't know the so-called whistleblower Rick Bright (…), but I seem to be an embittered employee, neither appreciated nor respected by the people I spoke to and who, because of his attitude, should no longer work for our government! ", the Republican billionaire had written on Twitter earlier.
The US Department of Health has also violently attacked Bright by accusing him in a statement Thursday of peddling "Biased arguments and (misinformation)" and seek to "Politicize the fight against Covid-19". "He was sacked for being right", said Anna Eshoo, democratic president of the committee of the House of Representatives who heard the scientist.
