Why was an unknown federal bureaucrat involved in Trump’s emergency hydroxychloroquine authorization?
WASHINGTON — Rick Bright, an otherwise unknown federal bureaucrat, burst onto the political stage this week with allegations that the Trump White House put politics ahead of science to advance an untested malaria drug as a coronavirus treatment — explosive claims that beg the question: Why was Bright involved in decisions about the drug at all?
Bright does not work at the Food and Drug Administration, which governs nearly all of the nation’s decisions about whether medicines are safe and effective. Nor is he a member of the Trump administration’s sprawling coronavirus task force, a body that includes the Surgeon General, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and even the undersecretary of transportation.
