BAR­DA chief turned whistle­blow­er Rick Bright re­signs from gov­ern­ment with one last broad­side against the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion

Rick Bright, the fed­er­al vac­cines of­fi­cial turned whistle­blow­er, re­signed from the gov­ern­ment yes­ter­day, fir­ing a fi­nal charge of po­lit­i­cal med­dling at the Trump Ad­min­is­tra­tion as he de­part­ed.

Bright had led BAR­DA for 4 years be­fore be­ing sud­den­ly re­moved from the post in April, just as the once lit­tle-known agency was gear­ing up for what would ul­ti­mate­ly be a more than $10 bil­lion ef­fort to ac­cel­er­ate vac­cines and ther­a­peu­tics for one of the worst pan­demics in mod­ern his­to­ry. In sub­se­quent state­ments, whistle­blow­er com­plaints, and con­gres­sion­al tes­ti­mo­ny, he al­leged that he was oust­ed for re­sist­ing a plan to mass dis­trib­ute hy­drox­y­chloro­quine — a Trump-tout­ed drug that has since re­peat­ed­ly proven in­ef­fec­tive — to hard-hit ar­eas and de­scribed an ex­tend­ed his­to­ry of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in agency de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

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