Whistleblower: Trump administration ignored virus warnings

A federal whistleblower has alleged the Trump administration failed to prepare adequately for the coronavirus pandemic and then pushed an unproven drug.

Dr. Rick Bright, former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, claims he was moved to a lesser role after resisting political pressure to implement hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug promoted by President Donald Trump.

“I witnessed government leadership rushing blindly into a potentially dangerous situation by bringing in a non-FDA approved chloroquine from Pakistan and India, from facilities that had never been approved by the FDA,” Bright said Tuesday on a call with reporters. “Their eagerness to push blindly forward without sufficient data to put this drug into the hands of Americans was alarming to me and my fellow scientists.”

Read more from The Associated Press.