Federal Doctor Says He Was Removed For Resisting Unproven Coronavirus

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The discussion centers on the intersection of medical policy and politics, particularly in the context of vaccine development during the Coronavirus crisis. A federal doctor claims he was removed from his position for advocating for scientifically vetted solutions rather than unproven treatments. Participants express concern about the implications of political interference in medical decisions, emphasizing that politicians without medical backgrounds should not dictate medical advice. The conversation also touches on the challenges of discussing these issues without veering into political territory, as well as the need for substantial funding for vaccine research. There is a consensus that the management of the health crisis has been poorly handled, leading to a call for more scientific freedom and less political influence in public health matters. The discussion highlights the complexities of balancing scientific integrity with political realities, particularly in times of crisis.
  • #61
Dr. Courtney said:
I don't know a single veteran who is more happy with the medical service they get from the VA compared with the medical service my family gets from our private plan. They may be satisfied overall, because the fact that it is FREE outweighs the abysmal actual service.

The only dissatisfying feature of my family's private plan is the COST. But I wouldn't trade my family's private plan for the FREE VA plan based on numerous discussions with veterans I know who are using the plan. FREE is the only thing they like about it.
While I generally agree with this post, there are many levels of veterans. I left the USAF after eight years service following several injuries on duty. Only after President Clinton intervened was I allowed to use VA medical benefits but I pay premiums and co-pays similar to Medicare. Nothing is free. No thing.

I could try to obtain service-connected free care but as I was able to graduate from uni while working in computer science, I figure to pay into the system to help veterans with more serious disabilities and utter hardship.

Medical care jitters between cruel through joking; hopefully with some happy mediums. For example, I presented for 12+ years with massive heart murmur, chest pain and bicuspid aortic valve also damaged in accidents at radar sites. My PCP refused to provide care and overrode Cardiology even after confirmatory stress EKG tests.

Forced to use a Medicare pain clinic, my anesthesiologist caught the murmur and insisted on cardiac cauterization at the local hospital. After devising a surgical treatment plan, I was able to obtain surgery 600 miles away in Palo Alto, California, VA.

Troubles, difficulties, 'accidents*' and politics beset every effort to remain alive against the apparent efforts of the VA. Even with subsidies, surviving completely depleted my retirement funds. Individual doctors and nurses might care, dragged down by the hacks and hateful failures clogging the weird system. Most VN vets agree the VA mission is to kill us.

*my ICU bed and later a chair collapsed waiting to be replaced. Wham! Dumped to floor. Incorrect blood was infused (came close to the Forum in the Sky that time!). A patient in surgical-ICU screamed en Espanol non-stop and ran around attacking sedated patients at night. An IV drip was jammed deep in my muscle tissue instead of blood vessel; then massive doses of amiodarone injected until a nursing student changed my IV for cleaning next day. Ruined my hand, blocked right eye and caused massive cardiac problems. Post-surgical exercise recovery was supervised back home by a devote "R" supporter who only spoke to same. My case was considered A+ treatment with positive outcome. Luckily I exercise like a maniac and have low BP.
 
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  • #62
Klystron said:
While I generally agree with this post, there are many levels of veterans. I left the USAF after eight years service following several injuries on duty. Only after President Clinton intervened was I allowed to use VA medical benefits but I pay premiums and co-pays similar to Medicare. Nothing is free. No thing.

I could try to obtain service-connected free care but as I was able to graduate from uni while working in computer science, I figure to pay into the system to help veterans with more serious disabilities and utter hardship.

Medical care jitters between cruel through joking; hopefully with some happy mediums. For example, I presented for 12+ years with massive heart murmur, chest pain and bicuspid aortic valve also damaged in accidents at radar sites. My PCP refused to provide care and overrode Cardiology even after confirmatory stress EKG tests.

Forced to use a Medicare pain clinic, my anesthesiologist caught the murmur and insisted on cardiac cauterization at the local hospital. After devising a surgical treatment plan, I was able to obtain surgery 600 miles away in Palo Alto, California, VA.

Troubles, difficulties, 'accidents*' and politics beset every effort to remain alive against the apparent efforts of the VA. Even with subsidies, surviving completely depleted my retirement funds. Individual doctors and nurses might care, dragged down by the hacks and hateful failures clogging the weird system. Most VN vets agree the VA mission is to kill us.

Anyone who has been part of the system knows this. When my Dad had his heart attack, the attending cardiologist couldn’t figure out why. The blockage was apparently a transient thing. He tried strong-arming a man too weak to walk to the bathroom to let him put my Dad on the operating table so they could stop his heart again and “study” how it behaved and recovered. Dr. Cardiologist was heading a study and needed participants.

I will NEVER support government provided healthcare. Too many years a military brat and I’ve seen it up close and personal.

Studies say? Live it for awhile and get back to me.
 
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  • #63
Ygggdrasil said:
Unless I am misreading the news reports, he was not removed from his position for going public with his criticisms. He released his complains to the media only after he was removed as director of BARDA.

Everything he has been procuring is unproven unless you know of a scientifically proven treatment that Bright wanted instead. All treatments are being given on a compassionate use basis and none of them are scientifically proven yet... even Remdesivir!

I wonder why Bright singled out HC + AZ? Sounds like politics to me. What was the reason for his pushback? Safety concerns? Prove that! Show me the studies and the numbers. HC has been around since the fifties. Millions of doses given. Show ONE QT elongation related death attributed to HC. There should be LOTS of data to support such a vociferous protest against it! Millions of doses already given for HC.

Show me the data.
 
  • #66
Oh, OK.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3760572/

see esp. the Discussion section of above for more references

Again, being out of my main field, I didn't go through the whole article. Hopefully someone more attuned to the life sciences can do a reasonable evaluation.

Cheers,
Tom
 
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  • #68
chemisttree said:
I wonder why Bright singled out HC + AZ? Sounds like politics to me.

Internal documents from the White House show that the administration was planning a massive campaign to make hydroxychloroquine widely available (perhaps even outside of hospital settings), which contradicted recommendations from HHS to only makie it available through controlled clinical trials:
In an internal consensus statement, a medical countermeasures group within Health and Human Services recommended that chloroquine-based COVID-19 treatments should be studied only in controlled, hospital-based clinical trials, as their safety and efficacy was “not supported by data from reliable clinical trials or from non-human primates” and carried “potential risks.” The medicines—which are used to treat malaria as well as autoimmune conditions such as lupus—can have serious side effects, including heart arrhythmias.

And yet, just hours after that April 4 press conference, White House officials pushed ahead with a massive behind-the-scenes pressure campaign on the government’s top health officials to deliver huge amounts of chloroquine drugs to just about anyone who wanted them, according to documents reviewed by Vanity Fair. That night, Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health in the Department of Health and Human Services, sent an email with the subject line “Hydroxychloroquine” to a group including FEMA administrator Pete Gaynor, HHS assistant secretary for preparedness and response Robert Kadlec, and Navy Rear Admiral John Polowczyk, who leads a supply-chain task force at FEMA.

The email read:

WH call. Really want to flood Ny and NJ with treatment courses. Hospitals have it. Sick out patients don’t. And can’t get. So go through distribution channels as we discussed. If we have 29 million perhaps send a few million ASAP? WH wants follow up in AM.

We can get a lot more of this. Right Bob? Millions per week?

The emails indicate that the administration’s top health officials were closely involved in a frenzied effort to make unproven chloroquine treatments widely available, even though the FDA’s new emergency rule limited distribution of the drug as a COVID-19 treatment to hospitalized patients. One hour after the first email, Gaynor replied to Kadlec, Giroir, and Polowczyk, seeming to suggest that FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn was on board with expanding COVID-19 patients’ access to the drug: “Hahn asked to distribute to hospitals and the drug stores.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/202...ts-reveal-team-trumps-chloroquine-master-plan

Bright was not pushing back against the compassionate use of the drug; he was pushing back against plans to widely distribute the drug and make it available for use outside of hospital settings.

In the statement related to his firing, Rick Bright seemed to refer to that authorization when he wrote, “I rightly resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public. I insisted that these drugs be provided only to hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19 while under the supervision of a physician.”

But top officials were not satisfied with the more restrictive approach and kept pushing for more widespread distribution of the drug. In an email that appears to have been addressed to Gaynor at some point after the emergency use authorization was issued, Brett Giroir argued strongly against limiting the drugs to hospitals. “NOPE. Needs to go to pharmacies as well,” he wrote. “The EUA matters not. The drug is approved [and] therefore can be prescribed as per doctor’s orders That is a FINAL ANSWER.”

In the context of these plans, it makes complete sense to Bright to push back specifically on hydroxychloroquine. Had similar recommendations been made for remdesvir, I would hope that he would have had similar push-back.
 
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  • #69
Yesterday, Dr. Bright filed a whistler blower complaint alleging:

"I was pressured to let politics and cronyism drive decisions over the opinions of the best scientists we have in government," Bright said on a call with reporters after filing his complaint. Bright said in the complaint he raised urgent concerns about shortages of critical supplies, including masks, to his superiors in the Trump administration but was met with skepticism and surprise.
...

In his whistleblower complaint, Bright says he raised concerns about US preparedness for Coronavirus starting in January but was met with "indifference which then developed into hostility" by leaders at the Department of Health and Human Services

Later, he says he pushed back on HHS's leadership when they sought to make "potentially harmful drugs" available for treating Covid-19, including hydroxychloroquine, which had been repeatedly touted by Trump as a potential cure despite a lack of robust testing.
"His efforts to prioritize science and safety over political expediency and to expose practices that posed a substantial risk to public health and safety, especially as it applied to chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, rankled those in the Administration who wished to continue to push this false narrative," the complaint reads.
 
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