Official ousted in hydroxychloroquine battle

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By REUTERS |
April 22, 2020 at 5:40 p.m.
By Jan Wolfe | Reuters

... Rick Bright .. was replaced as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority .. and reassigned to a new role because he resisted efforts to push hydroxychloroquine and .. chloroquine ...

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees BARDA, said on Tuesday that Bright had been moved to a new public-private partnership under the National Institutes of Health announced last week.

U.S. top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said on Wednesday he had heard that in his new role, Bright would be responsible for the development of diagnostics, a “very, very important” issue.

BARDA officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment ...

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/04/22/us-official-says-he-was-ousted-in-hydroxychloroquine-battle/

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1. Official ousted for refusing to push hydroxychloroquine

By DAVID MATTHEWS
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS |
APR 22, 2020 | 7:41 PM

... “Specifically, and contrary to misguided directives, I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, promoted by the administration as a panacea, but which clearly lack scientific merit,” Dr. Richard Bright wrote ...

Bright .. was demoted .. which he claims is an example of the .. administration putting “cronyism ahead of science” ...

“These drugs have potentially serious risks ... Sidelining me in the middle of this pandemic and placing politics and cronyism ahead of science puts lives at risk and stunts national efforts to safely and effectively address this urgent public health crisis” ...

Asked about Bright at his briefing Wednesday, Trump said, “I never heard of him” ...

https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-richard-bright-oust-president-trump-hydrozychloroquine-20200422-l4elznach5dlpfzurgsltzptgi-story.html

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2. HHS official ousted after objections to hydroxychloroquine

By Aaron Rupa
Apr 22, 2020, 6:20pm EDT

... In the letter, first reported by the New York Times, Bright demanded the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General investigate whether his demotion to a lesser role with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) stemmed from political or financial motives instead of public health ones ...

HHS did not immediately respond to an email .. seeking comment ...

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/22/21231763/dr-rick-bright-fired-hhs-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-vaccine-trump

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3. Fox goes radio silent

... On Tuesday, a study .. showed the treatment to be ineffective ... Of the 368 patients, all men .. treated at Veterans Health Administration medical centers .. 27.8% who took hydroxychloroquine along with typical treatment procedures died, while just 11.4% who received standard care died ... Use of the drug did not impact .. need for ventilator assistance.

The study was released on the same day that the National Institutes of Health .. issued a new advisory declaring there is not sufficient data to support or wholly oppose use of the anti-malarial drug to treat COVID-19. The NIH did .. recommend against stacking hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin .. due to .. side effects and “potential toxicities.”

... before .. research had been conducted, Trump was pushing the .. cocktail ... Fox News followed suit .. mentioning hydroxychloroquine hundreds of times ... “One patient was described as Lazarus getting up…he was like on death’s door. And they started getting a protocol of hydroxychloroquine…and it suddenly, like Lazarus, up from the grave,” said Fox News host Laura Ingraham ... Days later, Trump’s FDA instituted an “emergency use authorization” that allowed hydroxychloroquine to be used on coronavirus patients, despite .. Fauci warning that its benefits were unproven ...

... the network’s overall tone has shifted ... Hydroxychloroquine has received noticeably fewer mentions on the network’s airwaves in recent days ...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/fox-news-silent-trump-coronavirus-drug-hydroxychloroquine

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4. Fox News hosts go mum

By Paul Farhi and Elahe Izadi
April 22, 2020 at 6:38 p.m. EDT

... Fox News’s .. medical correspondent .. during Tucker Carlson’s show .. said his 96-year-old father .. made a full recovery thanks to the drug ... “He got up the next day and was fine,” Siegel told .. Carlson.

Siegel’s .. story was part of a near-campaign for hydroxychloroquine by Fox News and .. Fox Business ...

... Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs and “Fox and Friends” hosts spoke of .. benefits in dozens of segments ...

Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham didn’t mention the new research on their programs on Tuesday. The topic has faded from their commentary, replaced by rhetoric about China’s culpability ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/fox-news-hosts-go-mum-on-hydroxychloroquine-the-covid-19-drug-they-spent-weeks-promoting/2020/04/22/eeaf90c2-84ac-11ea-ae26-989cfce1c7c7_story.html

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5. Vaccine expert fired for resisting hydroxychloroquine

David Smith in Washington
Published on Wed 22 Apr 2020 17.32 EDT

... Ronald Klain, who led the Obama administration’s response to an Ebola outbreak in 2014, tweeted: “Dr Bright is a professional – an expert on vaccines – who I met during the Ebola response. If this is true, it … represents an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to put politics ahead of science and safety” ...

Bright, whose entire career had been spent in vaccine development, had led Barda since 2016. He was moved to a less influential post at the National Institutes of Health ...

“I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science – not politics or cronyism – has to lead the way.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/22/rick-bright-trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus

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6. Politics of Hydroxychloroquine

By Derek Lowe
22 April, 2020

... I have to applaud Dr. Bright for his refusal to shrug his shoulders and just walk off. These are really serious charges to make during this pandemic, and if his accusations have merit, this is just the sort of malfeasance that can’t be tolerated. Dead bodies are piling up, the economy is at a standstill, we are in a public health crisis the likes of which none of us have ever experienced, and the administration is making sure to take funding decisions out of the hands of career scientists so that cash can be steered to well-connected snake oil artists? We have to know the truth ...

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/04/22/the-politics-of-hydroxychloroquine

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7. Fox News' promotion of hydroxychloroquine damaging

WRITTEN BY MEDIA MATTERS STAFF
PUBLISHED 04/22/20 10:28 AM EDT

... R. KENT SEPKOWITZ (INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST): It's very damaging. It puts false hopes into patients and their families. It, I think, deflects resource and attention to other, better therapies. And it also turns a discussion that is a pretty sober discussion into something resembling a political circus, which never helps anything.

https://www.mediamatters.org/coronavirus-covid-19/infectious-disease-specialist-fox-news-promotion-hydroxychloroquine-very

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8. Hydroxychloroquine flops

Cory Renauer
Apr 22, 2020 at 6:21AM

... investigators looked back at the clinical outcomes of 368 veterans treated for COVID-19 at various V.A. medical centers through April 11 -- some of whom were given hydroxychloroquine, and some of whom were not ...

https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/04/22/hydroxychloroquine-flops-as-a-covid-19-treatment-r.aspx

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9. Tracking misinformation

By FERGAL GALLAGHER, ABC News

(NEW YORK) ... Medicinal misinformation is not a new problem .. but the speed and spread of misinformation related to COVID-19 is on a scale never before seen.

“We’ve never had a global story like this where people are going through the same experiences in different countries,” Claire Wardle of First Draft, a non-profit that researches information disorder, told ABC News. “We’re seeing a lot of misinformation jumping from South Africa to London to New York. We haven’t recognized the power of misinformation until now. A lot of it has been about political speech, but now this information could actually be harmful to people” ...

... it wasn’t really until Elon Musk tweeted about the drug March 16 that social media interest spiked ...

... the president repeatedly touted hydroxychloroquine in his daily briefings, and there’s no doubt that the amplification of scientifically unproven claims on social media has helped raise the profile of the drug, the true effectiveness of which on COVID-19 remains to be seen — or not seen.

https://www.mycentraloregon.com/2020/04/22/tracking-hydroxychloroquine-misinformation-how-an-unproven-covid-19-treatment-ended-up-being-endorsed-by-trump/

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10. Concern over state's planned purchase of Hydroxychloroquine

by Jim Spiewak
Wednesday, April 22nd 2020

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — There’s growing concern over the state's plan to buy an unproven drug to treat COVID-19. Some Utah lawmakers say the drug, Hydroxychloroquine, could do more harm than good, and the state is about to purchase 200,000 units.

It's thought by some to be a potential drug to help COVID-19 patients but Representative Suzanne Harrison, who is also an anesthesiologist, says, “When we don't have the medical science to back it up, I feel like it's irresponsible to be using taxpayer dollars for something that we don't know if it works” ...

https://kutv.com/news/coronavirus/concern-grows-over-states-planned-purchase-of-hydroxychloroquine

[Takket]

12. The VA and Bureau of Prisons already made huge purchases too........

no doubt the order came from drumpf........... lining his pockets on the guise of "being prepared", and if it doesn't work he can just say "oh well better to be prepared!"

[Frustratedlady]

13. I think I'm right in that Trump said he'd ordered millions of the pills...

which was maybe 3 weeks ago. I never see it mentioned, but I'm sure he said that.

[Takket]

11. here we go again..........

The IG should get his/her resume together since they are going to be looking for a job soon if they follow the law and forward the complaint.