Ousts BARDA director Rick Bright after he resists hydroxychloroquine push

On April 20, 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services removed Rick Bright as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and reassigned him to a narrower role at the National Institutes of Health. An HHS spokesperson said Bright's new assignment would focus on 'the development and deployment of novel point-of-care testing platforms.' Bright said he believed the move was retaliation for his 'insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress...into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit,' and for resisting pressure to promote hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment. He later filed a whistleblower complaint alleging the administration had prioritized 'politics and cronyism' over science; the U.S. Office of Special Counsel subsequently found reasonable grounds to believe HHS had retaliated against him unlawfully.