Head of vaccine development alleges 'cronyism' after being removed from post
疫苗开发负责人在被撤职后声称存在“任人唯亲”现象
Rick Bright claims he's being "sidelined" amid pandemic.
瑞克·布莱特声称他在流感大流行中被“边缘化”了。
The head of the federal agency charged with overseeing the rapid production of a vaccine to fight the coronavirus pandemic said Wednesday he was removed from his post after trying to push back against what he called “cronyism” infecting the federal effort.
负责监督一种预防冠状病毒的疫苗快速生产的联邦机构负责人星期三说，他在试图阻止他所说的“裙带关系”感染联邦机构后被免职。
Dr. Rick Bright said he was transferred “in response to my insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit.”
瑞克·布莱特博士说，他之所以被调任，是因为“我坚持要求政府将国会拨出的数十亿美元资金投入到安全且经过科学审查的解决方案中，而不是投入到缺乏科学价值的药物、疫苗和其他技术中。”
“I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science – not politics or cronyism – has to lead the way,” Bright said in a statement that came less than 24 hours after the Department of Health and Human Services circulated an internal memo, reviewed by ABC News, saying he had been promoted to a position in another agency. “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."
“我说因为对抗这种致命的病毒,科学,而不是政治或任人唯亲——带路,“亮在一份声明中表示,不到24小时后,卫生和人类服务部传阅一份内部备忘录,对ABC新闻,说他被提升到另一个机构的位置。“让我置身于这场大流行之中，把政治和任人唯亲置于科学之上，这将置生命于危险之中，阻碍国家安全有效地应对这一紧迫的公共卫生危机的努力。”
(MORE: When coronavirus vaccine arrives, experts worry US not ready to mass produce) (更多:当冠状病毒疫苗到来时，专家们担心我们还没有准备好大规模生产)
The White House declined to comment for this report, but President Trump said Wednesday that he had "never heard" of Bright.
白宫拒绝就该报道置评，但特朗普总统周三表示，他“从未听说过”布莱特。
"The guy says he was pushed out of a job. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't. You'd have to hear the other side. I don't know who he is," the president said at his daily press briefing.
这家伙说他被解雇了。也许他是。也许他不是。你得听听另一边。我不知道他是谁，”总统在他的每日新闻发布会上说。
Bright had been in charge of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, known as BARDA, which recently received more than $3 billion in federal funds to help ramp up production capacity so that any discovery of a coronavirus vaccine can be quickly manufactured and distributed to hundreds of millions of Americans. His removal from the post stunned lawmakers who had been pushing for a more robust vaccine effort.
布莱特的生物医学高级研究和发展机构,称为BARDA,最近收到了超过30亿美元的联邦资金来帮助提高生产能力,这样任何发现的冠状病毒疫苗可以快速制造和分发给数以百万计的美国人。他的被免职震惊了那些一直在推动更强有力的疫苗努力的立法者。
“We need to be listening to experts and science, not pushing them aside," Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote on Twitter following news reports regarding Bright's statement. "A global pandemic is not the time to shuffle personnel, or contradict and remove experts for wanting to do their job well. These reports are incredibly disturbing and I will be pushing for answers.”
“我们需要听取专家和科学的意见，而不是把他们推到一边，”华盛顿州民主党参议员帕蒂·默里(Patty Murray)说。在有关布莱特声明的新闻报道之后，她在推特上写道。他说:“全球大流行不是为了把工作做好而洗牌、反驳或解雇专家的时候。这些报道非常令人不安，我将努力寻求答案。”
Bright will be moving to a position at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to lead a new initiative “to accelerate the development of Covid-19 vaccine and treatment options,” said a spokesperson for Health and Human Services, which is BARDA's parent organization, prior to Bright's statement. Gary Disbrow, Bright’s current assistant secretary, will serve as the acting director of BARDA. In a follow-up statement, the HHS said at the NIH Bright would "work on development and deployment of novel point-of-care testing platforms."
在Bright发表声明之前，BARDA的母公司卫生与公众服务部的一名发言人表示，Bright将在美国国家卫生研究院(NIH)领导一项新举措，“加快开发covid19疫苗和治疗方案”。布莱特目前的助理秘书加里·迪斯布罗将担任BARDA的代理董事。在一份后续声明中，美国卫生与公众服务部表示，在NIH Bright将“致力于开发和部署新型的现场检测平台”。
An internal message announcing Bright’s departure reviewed by ABC News congratulated Bright on the new position.
美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)看到了布莱特离职的内部消息，并对他的新职位表示祝贺。
“The President and the Secretary and Congress see this as an essential effort requiring the best effort and people this Nation has,” the HHS email read. “One of our own has been tapped."
“总统，部长和国会认为这是一个必要的努力，需要最大的努力和这个国家的人民，”HHS的电子邮件中写道。“我们的一个人被窃听了。”
BARDA plays the crucial role of overseeing and investing in the development, manufacturing, purchasing, and deployment of vaccines during the pandemic -- what experts say is the key to emerging from the coronavirus pandemic safely. The little known agency is part of the Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.
在流感大流行期间，BARDA在监督和投资疫苗的开发、生产、采购和部署方面发挥着至关重要的作用，专家说，这是安全摆脱冠状病毒大流行的关键。这个鲜为人知的机构是负责准备和应对工作的助理国务卿卫生与公众服务办公室的一部分。
As ABC News previously reported, medical experts and sources familiar with the organization have privately raised concerns about the agency. BARDA entered the pandemic crisis with a strategic plan that had not been updated since 2016, and medical experts have privately said more funding does not mean the agency will be able to catch up in time.
正如美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)此前报道的那样，熟悉该组织的医学专家和消息人士私下里对该机构表示了担忧。BARDA进入大流行危机的战略计划自2016年以来一直没有更新，医学专家私下表示，更多的资金并不意味着该机构将能够及时跟上。
"Where has the investment been going for pandemic preparedness?" asked one infectious disease expert familiar with the agency's operations.
一位熟悉该机构运作的传染病专家问道:“大流行防范的投资都花在哪里了?”
When asked for the agency’s updated plan last week, Bright told ABC News in a statement that the agency’s goals are “woven into the [2018] National Biodefense Strategy, the National Health Security Strategy and Implementation Plan, and the Public Health Medical Countermeasures Enterprise multi-year budget.”
上周，当被问及该机构的最新计划时，布莱特在一份声明中告诉ABC新闻，该机构的目标“已被纳入[2018年]国家生物防御战略、国家卫生安全战略和实施计划，以及公共卫生医疗对策企业多年预算”。
“Vaccine technology development and manufacturing initiatives begun 10 years ago and have continued towards national preparedness goals,” Bright said at the time.
布赖特当时说:“疫苗技术开发和生产活动始于10年前，并继续朝着国家防备目标迈进。”
But this week, reports began to emerge of tensions between Bright and Dr. Robert Kadlec, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at HHS. Sources told ABC News the two men sparred on some aspects of managing BARDA throughout the coronavirus pandemic. In recent weeks, the tensions had boiled over, the sources said.
但是本周，布莱特和美国卫生与公众服务部负责准备和应对工作的助理部长罗伯特·卡德莱克博士之间的紧张关系开始浮出水面。消息人士告诉美国广播公司新闻网，这两人就如何在整个冠状病毒大流行期间管理巴尔达的某些方面进行了争论。消息人士称，最近几周，紧张局势已经升级。
Bright’s statement Tuesday also painted a bleak picture of the weeks since the coronavirus outbreak began. In it, he said he was being handed “misguided directives” pushing the drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, which he said lacked scientific merit.
布莱特周二的声明也描绘了自冠状病毒爆发以来几周的暗淡前景。在报告中，他说他被给予了“误导的指令”来推销氯喹和羟基氯喹这两种药物，他说这两种药物缺乏科学价值。
“While I am prepared to look at all options and to think ‘outside the box’ for effective treatments, I rightly resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public,” Bright said. “I insisted that these drugs be provided only to hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19 while under the supervision of a physician. These drugs have potentially serious risks associated with them, including increased mortality observed in some recent studies in patients with COVID-19.”
布莱特说:“虽然我准备考虑所有的选择，并‘跳出框框’思考有效的治疗方法，但我拒绝向美国公众提供一种需要的未经证实的药物，这是正确的。”“我坚持认为，这些药物只能在医生的监督下提供给已确诊为COVID-19的住院患者。这些药物有潜在的严重风险，包括最近一些研究中观察到的COVID-19患者死亡率的增加。”
Those drugs had been promoted heavily by Trump during his public appearances at the White House.
这些药品是特朗普在白宫公开露面时大力推广的。
Earlier this month, Trump said at his daily briefing he though there were “some very strong, powerful signs” of the drug’s potential to fight coronavirus.
本月早些时候，特朗普在每日新闻发布会上表示，他认为有“一些非常强有力的迹象”表明这种药物有对抗冠状病毒的潜力。
“If it does work, it would be a shame we did not do it early,” he said. “We are sending them to various labs, our military, we’re sending them to the hospitals.”
他说:“如果它真的起作用，我们没有早点行动就太可惜了。”“我们把他们送到各个实验室，我们的军队，我们把他们送到医院。”
Late Wednesday, an HHS spokesperson said in a statement that it was Bright who requested the Food and Drug Administration give the drugs an emergency authorization (EUA). "The EUA is what made the donated product available for use in combating COVID-19," the spokesperson said.
周三晚些时候，美国卫生与公众服务部的一名发言人在一份声明中表示，是布莱特要求美国食品和药物管理局(Food and Drug Administration，简称EUA)对这些药物进行紧急授权的。发言人说:“EUA使捐赠的产品可用于抗击COVID-19。”
Murray, among others in the senate, recently raised concerns about political efforts to push unproven medical solutions. In a letter sent last week, the senior Democrat on the senate’s health committee called on the FDA to “act with speed and flexibility in its response to this extraordinary public health crisis but must do so in a manner that upholds scientific integrity over political influence.”
默里和参议院的其他一些人最近对推动未经证实的医疗解决方案的政治努力表示担忧。在上周发出的一封信中，参议院健康委员会的资深民主党人呼吁FDA“在应对这场非同寻常的公共健康危机时要迅速、灵活地采取行动，但必须坚持科学的完整性，而不是政治的影响。”
After Bright's statement Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., called on the HHS inspector general to investigate what he called the "shocking and disturbing allegation" that Bright was removed for questioning and "resisting" Trump's promotion of the drugs.
在布莱特的声明之后，马萨诸塞州民主党参议员埃德·马基(Ed Markey)发表了自己的看法。他说，这是“令人震惊和不安的指控”，布莱特被撤职接受质询，并“抵制”特朗普推广药品。
In his statement, Bright himself asked the inspector general to "investigate the manner in which this administration has politicized the work of BARDA," among other allegations.
在他的声明中，布赖特本人要求监察长“调查本届政府将巴尔达的工作政治化的方式”，以及其他指控。
