Transcripts For CSPAN Rick Bright Testifies Before House Energy Commerce Panel 20240713

[indiscernible chatter] the subcommittee on health will now come to order. Good morning, colleagues. The chair now recognizes herself for five minutes for an Opening Statement. Madam chair, would you yield for a parliamentary inquiry as we start this hearing . I want to do my Opening Statement pardon me . I already recognize myself, but i will recognize you afterward. Id be holding, or that we would be holding a hearing under these circumstances. But i think it is a necessary one. Our country is in pain. Americans are afraid, you they they are sick, hungry, and jobless, and over 80,000 souls have been lost. The government that was supposed to protect them has failed. They haveheroes, and risen, extraordinary, ordinary americans showing courage, compassion, and a sense of selfsacrifice and duty beyond what could have or should have of them. Been asked regular americans have risen when their leaders have not. We are the greatest country on , and we have the most deathsnd the most from covid19 than any nation in the world. Why . The inept, ineffective, and extremely late effort to response to what was clear to many scientists and Public Health experts in january. That basic delay cost precious lives, and is continuing to cost lives. Wherenot have a system the price paid is unconscionable. Mothers losing daughters, becauses losing fathers of incompetence, denial, delay, and a disorganized response. Frankly, im tired of those who bear the responsibility accepting none of it, while deflecting blame on others. The Previous Administration, the World Health Organization, the wuhan lab, anywhere but where the blame belongs. Second, the United States has and remains dangerously dependent on Foreign Countries for our supply of critical lifesaving drugs and lifesaving equipment. Masks, gloves, ppe and ventilators. Treat ourt, we cannot own people without relying on china and others to supply us. We cannot outfit our first responders, our hospital workers. Our nurses, our doctors. We cannot care for our own nation in crisis. This surely is a National Security issue. Want to thank the gentleman from indiana, ms. Brooks, for her bipartisan work with me to the drug supply chain issue, as well as other members on a bipartisan basis for their legislation on those issues as goings he today, we are to hear about the disastrous federal response to an approaching pandemic. Dr. Bright has filed one of the most specific and troubling whistleblower complaints ive ever seen. Person with the right judgment at the right time. Not only ignored, he was fired for being right. Have a system where the government fires those who get right and a reward those and reward those who get it completely wrong. Michael bowen, the executive Vice President of prestige merit , will speak to americas crippling dependence on Foreign Countries for critical medical supplies. A Public Health issue and the National Security issue. Our country is paying a terrible once today, and it rests congress to address this threat, where any effort of an adversary can cut off our supply of lifesaving drugs and supplies. Our lifeline. And this would create a Health Care Disaster on a scale never experienced before. , asar this responsibility does every member of congress. Subcommittee holds jurisdiction over our countrys most prestigious health care institutions, fda, nih, cdc and bartel. We have to listen. We have to learn, and we must Work Together for the people of our country who need us so, so much. Regardless of inconvenient truths. That secretaryet azar, dr. Robert kadlec, and dr. Peter navarro have all refused to testify today. I now ask for a moment of silence in honor of the over 80,000 americans who have lost their lives from covid19. The chair now recognizes before im recognized for an Opening Statement, i wonder if i can be recognized for a parliamentary inquiry. The gentleman is recognized to state his parliamentary inquiry. We agree is, id like clarification with this before us today, is this witness testifying as a government witness or as an individual . Dr. Bright is testifying as a federal employee. Correct . And representing he is a federal employee representing himself. I now recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee. Madam chair, just to question. Normally we have name plates identifying whos at the table and just i know dr. Bright, of course, but im not sure whos next to him. Youre correct. I dont know why we dont have name plates. I didnt notice that when i came into the hearing room. Can the staff provide them . Is there any way the staff can provide them . I think we can. Thank you. I also would like to inform the members that dr. Brights attorney, deborah katz, is at the table. Shes requested a microphone. She is not here as a witness. So we will not be asking her questions. She is simply here to represent her client. I now would like to recognize the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, dr. Burgess, for his five minutes for an Opening Statement. I thank the chair. The energy and commerce, particularly the subcommittee on health is the premiere Health Subcommittee in the congress. We have a broad jurisdiction. A long standing tradition of tackling Important Health care issues in a bipartisan manner. I personally, like our witness today, have been very, very concerned. In fact, sounding the alarm about this Novel Coronavirus since january. So i ask, why is this the First Official hearing that were having on this topic . To say this is a disappointment would be an understatement. Not only disappointment but im concerned that it took five months to have a hearing on this Novel Coronavirus instead of tackling any of the issues suggested in the letters that that i sent to you this week, were examining a whistleblower complaint that is only oneweekold before a proper investigation. In these letters, i outlined the importance of addressing the Strategic National stockpile, covid19s impact on Mental Health, testing. Certainly we should have a hearing on testing. Racial disparities and provide relief. Provider relief. The lack of attention to these details are detrimental to our nations overall response to this pandemic and it is the responsibility of this house and this responsibility of this committee. We continue to stand on the sidelines. Instead of becoming fully engaged. Every whistleblower deserves to be heard. Dr. Bright has raised serious allegations, and they deserve investigation. Whistleblowers must have their rights protected and deserve to have their allegations investigated with policies and procedures that have been long established and upheld as independent and fair. Madam chair, on april 23, cnn reported that you planned to call dr. Bright to testify. Dr. Bright did not actually file his whistleblower complaint with the office of special counsel until tuesday, may 5. That same day it was announced on social media that you planned to hold a hearing, but it was not officially noticed until two days later. By friday, may 8, the office of special counsel recommended that dr. Bright be temporarily reinstated as director of b. A. R. D. A. So they could thoroughly conduct its investigation and move forward with the usual processes of reviewing whistleblower complaints. Despite the hearing memo, no final determination of the violation of the whistleblower statute has actually been made. Following a robust investigation process, the customary setting for a whistleblower hearing would be in our energy and Commerce Committee under the under oath in the Office Oversight and investigation subcommittee. To say this hearing is premature, and it is a disservice to the investigation of dr. Brights complaint i think goes without saying. You trampled on minority rights. You would have never tolerated that when you were in the minority. You neglected the tradition of this committee and in the manner this hearing was called. The number of procedural fouls committed in advance of this hearing would certainly have led the chair to a foul in multiple basketball games. Apparently in a World Without sports, this subcommittee has become political sport. More than 80,000 american lives have been lost to this pandemic. It continues to wreak havoc on our communities, not only in terms of physical health but Mental Health and certainly financial health. We should be conducting a hearing on the realtime implementation of the pandemic allhazard preparedness and advancing act and we should have done it in february. As a democratic counterpart to the primary officer, dr. Susan brooks, you, madam chair, should have a great interest in holding such a hearing. In my district, weve seen deaths amongst young africanamericans from covid19. Were hearing about a new phenomenon of very young individuals who are dying from an intense inflammatory response apparently sparked by infection with this virus. We should hear from some of these families and the medical professionals to analyze why this virus has disproportionately affected some communities, particularly minority communities. So i said it before, not all heroes wear capes. Hospitals, doctors, other Health Care Providers are on the frontlines every day battling this virus. They go to work so we can stay home, which weve done very successfully. The inability to conduct nonessential procedures and visits has led to financial harm to our hospitals and doctors, how our states and country preparing to ease back into providing medical care is the distribution of the Provider Relief Fund in the c. A. R. E. S. Act working . These are the questions we should be asking the experts today. I appreciate chairman pallone holding telephone briefings since we have our own questions. But let me just say, this pandemic is about the Public Health of our nation. I thank you for your commitment to hold future hearings on the Strategic National stockpile, Mental Health and racial disparities. Im happy to help you set the agenda for the rest of the year. I hope you will commit to additional hearings on testing and the Provider Relief Fund. And i request that my letters be part ofsponses the record. I yield back. The gentleman yields back. I think the gentleman will recall that i called for a hearing on january 30, and on the heels of that, it was to be with dr. Cadlick, dr. Fauci, all the heads of our health agencies, and it was secretary azar that said they cannot come. Im the top person. And when i come, they will come with me. So that was january 30. Madam chair, oversight and Government Reform Committee for two days. Im not finished yet. Yet. Im not finished yet, dr. Burgess. Youve written several letters to me in the last week, and i communicated to you, im happy to sit down with you to review and to come up with all the appropriate hearings that this subcommittee should hold. And we will Work Together on that. We have a lot of work to do. Youre absolutely right. The stockpile, testing, the list is as long as pennsylvania avenue. So we will Work Together on that, rest assured. Now, id like to recognize the the chairman of the full committee, mr. Pallone, for his five minutes for an Opening Statement. Thank you, madam chair. And thank you, ms. Eshoo, for initiating this hearing and putting all your energy into it so that were here today with dr. Bright. We are here as part of the energy and Commerce Committees ongoing work to confront the largest Public Health and economic crisis of our lifetimes. It has been mentioned, more than 80,000 americans have lost their lives. 36 million lost their jobs as of today. This is a National Emergency that requires every aspect of government together to reduce the spread of this terrible virus so we can confidently begin to reopen our economy. And while this congress and this president worked together to enact four laws to combat the pandemic and provide economic assistance to the American People, new laws are simply not enough. President trump and his administration have failed to provide the consistent and stable leadership that is necessary to guide our nation through this Public Health and economic crisis. For months, the president has delivered mixed messages and misinformation to the American People, creating confusion across the nation. Instead of showing leadership, competence and vision in a time of crisis, the administration has abdicated its responsibility and forced states to fend for themselves and find their own way out of this pandemic. And while states and Frontline Health care workers were pleading for personal protective equipment, testing supplies and other resources to protect them and their patients, President Trumps response was to let states fight it out on the open market. For months, the president has refused to develop and implement a National Testing program. For months weve been promised millions of tests were right around the corner. The promises have been hollow. Testing is Getting Better but nowhere near what it needs to be. The president proclaimed about testing earlier this week, and i quote, we have met the moment and we have prevailed. That could not be further from the truth, mr. President. Dr. Rick bright, the former director of b. A. R. D. A. , has come forward as a whistleblower and made serious allegations, including a lack of urgency by Administration Officials to respond to the virus. Mismanagement and failure to procure necessary supplies and disregard for Public Health and scientific integrity. His claims lie at the heart of this committees concerns regarding the administrations response to the covid19 pandemic. Were here today to hear the perspective of dr. Bright, who is positioned to discuss the administrations preparations and response to this pandemic. Now, the failures weve seen simply cannot persist. Thats why the energy and Commerce Committee continues to conduct robust oversight and to propose bold legislative solutions. Weve been demanding answers and information from the administration on testing, Contact Tracing, the supply chain, food safety, and the safety of Food Production workers and attempts undermine attempts to undermine science and Public Health. To date we have yet to receive any sufficient responses from the Trump Administration. As for legislation, congress has already passed four major Coronavirus Response packages that were improved by the work of this committee. And now with the sense of urgency this moment requires, earlier this week we proposed the heroes act, which will be voted on tomorrow by the full house. The heroes act continues our ongoing commitment by providing the Health Care Resources and support needed to combat the coronavirus crisis. Our legislation will strengthen testing and Contact Tracing by finally requiring the administration to develop comprehensive plans with clear benchmarks and timelines and public reporting of key metrics. This will allow transparency so we can see if the Trump Administration is fulfilling its promises and hold them accountable if theyre not. We also provide 75 billion to support robust testing, Contact Tracing, surveillance, and containment activities. This is beyond the 25 that was in the last bill. And we simply cannot beat this virus without these efforts in place. Our legislation also ensures that all covid19 treatments, drug, and vaccines are free of cost for patients. The bill will help shore up our Public Health infrastructure for the long road ahead. Our top priority is the health and safety of the American People. The heroes act builds on the progress we have made and lays the foundation we will need to ease social distancing and safely reopen the economy. So i just want to thank dr. Bright for coming forward and for being here today. I want to thank you, madam chair, for bringing him here. And im hopeful this hearing will help us better understand the failures of the Trump Administration so that collectively we can find solutions that will help us finally get a handle on this virus. Its the only way well be able to protect the American People and safely and competently reopen our communities. And i thank you, madam chair, and yield back. The gentleman yields back. The chair recognizes the gentleman from oregon, the Ranking Member of the full committee, mr. Walden. Thank you very much, madam chair. Before i use my time, i do have to say, a parliamentary question for you, if you would yield to that. You can state your parliamentary inquiry. And know were operating really unusual conditions we are because of the mask send everything, which also affects the layout of the room. When we do oversight and investigation hearings i know that is not what we are doing here, there is a script about whether an individual is accompanied by counsel, whether they want that counsel represented. I got that script. The reason im asking, we are o i, but it is extremely usual to have government witnesses with private counsel with a microphone. Im trying to get clarification for future precedentsetting for the committee, and that is the only reason i am asking, if we should follow the protocol that is prescribed to the oversight and Investigations Committee under similar circumstances. I think this is the first time that is why i ask we have another first year, when dr. Bright came in this morning with his attorney, she requested a microphone. As a courtesy, i extended the microphone to her. Yeah, sure. Now, she is not a witness. We are not going to ask her questions. She is simply accompanying her client. I have no objection to any of that. Can i read to you what this text says, maybe it resolved that . O i. Is isnt do we need to follow what o i does . He is not here in his whistleblowing capacity, that is what i have been told, as you indicated, but this is his personal attorney. But we do not even know for sure i know who you are, but we have not identified that for the record. , as you know, i you ask if the witness wants to be accompanied by counsel, they no, and theor council is allowed to move forward, sit at the table, and the question is asked will you give testimony or not. Raise your hand to all these things. That is what i am doing here. We do not do this activity in the other policy committees, and we are not usually set up this way. I just think we ought to follow that for future issues. T where are all learning how to operate in this environment. All right. The gentleman is recognized for five minutes for his Opening Statement. Are we going to ask if he wants to be represented by counsel, and to the council is . Dr. Bright, do you wish to be represented by counsel . Yes. And can she identified herself for the record . And for the record, will counsel please state your name . My name is debra katz, i am an attorney representing dr. Ick bright the gentleman is recognized for 5 parliamentary question. The gentleman state his parliamentary . Will the witness be under oath . Because the testimony under o i, the witness would be under oath. If he is not under oath, if we get into whistleblower allegations, how can we be sure the witness is telling the truth under oath if they are not under oath, and if they are not under oath, then how can you talk about the whistleblower complaints . In a fair and equitable manner . Ank the gentleman for his inquiry. All witnesses note, it is illegal to liza congress to lie to congress. In our subcommittee, unlike o i, they are the only subcommittee it is a practice, a tradition, but we do not swear people in. , it is illegal to lie to congress, all right . Thank you. Youre welcome. The gentleman is recognized for his five minutes. Thank you, madam chair. I know we are operating under unique circumstances. The world is coping with a historic deadly pandemic that we always knew was possible but we prayed would not happen. In a bipartisan way, we did to behing we needed to do prepared should a pandemic make or other hazards strike. The work you, dr. Burgess, representative susan brooks and i did over to congresses when each party has givend this house playede you once before going to b. A. R. D. A. , you had a big responsibility to make sure congress provided the Strategic National stockpile were needed, tell us shortcomings as we were doing the act. I went back to over three hearings we held in the oversight investigations subcommittee where you testified about the zika outbreak in 2017, the seasonal flu on march 8, 2018, on june 15, 2018, entitled the state of u. S. Public health biopreparedness, responding to biological attacks, pandemics, and emerging Infectious Disease outbreaks. You see, i wanted to make sure we had not missed anything. Nothing jumped out of me as i reread the record. Congress increased funding to a. S. P. E. R. And b. A. R. D. A. We followed your recommendations in playing in this combiepd in playing in this combined effort. Unfortunately, some of the systems we put in place to prepare for a pandemic, systems designed without actually living through some like this, have not performed as expected. Weve learned we didnt have enough of the basic supplies that weve always taken for granted. While chair eshoo and i warned about the potential vulnerabilities of our medical supply chains, especially from china, not enough was done to address the problem, and it still hasnt been fully addressed. Im thankful that President Trump invoked the defense production act to ramp up the u. S. Manufacturing of masks and ventilators and the president used the Emergency Powers and Money Congress has provided to launch unprecedented efforts to search the globe for supplies, to rapidly advance development of treatments and vaccines. But we still have much bipartisan work to do to respond and adapt to the challenges presented by covid19. And the lessons were learning. We have asked for and this committee should hold hearings to find a path forward to reform the Strategic National stockpile, to increase domestic manufacturing of critical supplies and disentangle our supply chains from china. We should be exploring strategies for increased testing so we can begin to safely reopen our economy. We need to find ways to improve access to Mental Health and provide relief, both for our Health Care Providers on the frontlines treating covid19 cases and our Health Care Workers who have been furloughed because their hospitals are closed. We should be conducting rigorous oversight of the trillions of dollars and a myriad new policies congress appropriated and enacted in the last three months, and we should be investigating, really investigating allegations like dr. Brights, that raise about our about our nations that raise concern about our nations Coronavirus Response. That does not appear to be why were actually here today and frankly it saddens me. Dr. Bright, your allegations are serious. They deserve a real investigation. I know the office of special counsel with whom you filed your complaint will do just that and i know they take their work seriously and hear you out. And well give those named in tor complaint t an opportunity give their side as well. We were confused when we learned from a tweet this schedule was scheduled in the wake of your complaint. As you know, thats certainly not how we do things at the energy and Commerce Committee. Not long after the notice of this being a whistleblower hearing, we were advised you were here as a government witness, not a whistleblower, but then we were told you were not representing the government but yourself. The hearing title suggests the hearing is about protecting scientific integrity, yet, the chair invited a witness that will not be speaking to that issue. It is all pretty confusing and unusual to say the least. Here we are in the middle of a pandemic and we arent given time to secure our witnesses, conduct appropriate research or acquire documents that could aid in our understanding of the situation you face and the country face. Our first discussion with the majority, unfortunately, just occurred three days ago. This is really serious business. But in my opinion, this is not how we should run an investigation. We need to get to the heart of the matter and we need to look forward to see what havent we done right as a congress and a country and what can we band what can weer band together and fix before fall arrives . I thank you for being here. I have enjoyed working with you over the years and continue to look forward to working with you and others to get this right. Madam chair, we have a letter for you asking for rule 11 hearing that well provide to you and with that i yield back. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. The chair would like to remind members that pursuant to committee rules, all members written Opening Statements will be made part of the record. Ouruld like to introduce witness to the first panel today. Dr. Rick bright is a highly regarded scientist with expertise in the fields of immunology, therapeutics, vaccine and diagnostic development. For the last decade, hes been n a career Civil Servant at the department of health and humans services. Was appointedght to the third director of barda, and as director of barda, he has antified before congress as expert numerous times, including before this subcommittee. I share with special pride, with senator richard burr, because together, it was our legislation that created barda, so thank you for your willingness to join us today and to offer testimony, dr. Bright. Youre certainly familiar with the lights. I dont need to explain those to you. You have five minutes for your statement. Welcome. Got the microphone on . There you go. Good morning to you. Dr. Bright good morning chairwoman eshoo, Ranking Member burgess and distinguished members of the subcommittee. I am dr. Rick bright, a career Public Servant and a scientist who has spent 25 years of my career focused on addressing pandemic outbreaks. I have a bachelors degree in biology and physical sciences and a ph. D. In immunology molecular pathogenesis. I lead teams of scientists developing drugs, vaccines and diagnostics in government, private industry and for nonprofit organizations. I am here today in my private capacity. These views are my own and not the department of health and Human Services. Andined b. A. R. D. A. In 2010 for the last three and a half years until , april 21 of this year, i had the privilege of serving as its director. B. A. R. D. A. Partners with private industry to address National Health security threats. Today the world is confronting a Public Health emergency unlike any we have seen in over a century. We are facing a highly transmissible and deadly virus that disrupts the very foundations of our society. The American Health care system is being taxed to the limit. Our economy is spiraling downward and our population is being paralyzed by fear, stemming from a lack of a coordinated response and a dearth of accurate, clear indication about the path forward. Americans yearn to get back to work, to open their businesses and provide for their families. I get that. However, what we do must be done carefully and with guidance from the best Scientific Minds. Our window of opportunity is closing. If we fail to improve our response now, based on science, i fear the pandemic will get worse and be prolonged. There will likely be a resurgence of covid19 this fall and it will be greatly compounded by the challenges of seasonal influenza. Without better planning, 2020 could be the darkest winter in modern history. First and foremost, we need to be truthful with the American People. Americans deserve the truth. The truth must be based on science. We have the worlds greatest scientists. Let us lead. Let us speak without fear of retribution. We must listen. Each of us can and must do our part now. On tuesday, dr. Fauci delivered a message in a voice thats clear and trustworthy as he encouraged us to act with caution as we return to our daily lives. We should listen to him and other scientists sharing their expertise. While waiting for a cure and a vaccine, which i believe will come, there are things we must do immediately. We must increase the Public Education about the basics washing hands, social distancing, appropriate face covering. They are simple but critical steps that buy a valuable time until there is a vaccine. We need to ramp up production of essential equipments and supplies, including Raw Materials and critical components. Shortages of these increase the risk of our Frontline Health care workers. They deserve the best equipment to protect themselves. We need to facilitate equitable distribution of essential equipment and supplies. Finally, we need a National Testing strategy. The virus is here. Its everywhere. We need to be able to find it, isolate it, and stop it. We need to have the right testing for everyone who needs it. We need to be able to trace contact, isolate, quarantine, and appropriately while striving to develop a cure. Initially, our nation was not as prepared as we should have been. As we could have been. Some scientists raised Early Warning signals that were overlooked. And pages from our pandemic playbook were ignored by some in leadership. There will be plenty of time to look back to assess what has happened so we can improve, but right now, we need to focus on getting things right going forward. We need a comprehensive plan that everyone knows and everyone participates in. Congress has taken important steps to support the response and theres much more we can do. With your help, we can get through this crisis. Working cooperatively with our global partners, we can and will succeed in finding a cure for covid19. That success depends on what we do today. We will either be remembered for what we did or what we failed to do to address this crisis. I call on all of us to act. To ensure the health, safety, and prosperity of all americans. You can count on me to do my part. Thank you. Ms. Eshoo thank you, dr. Bright. Well now move to member questions and i recognize myself for five minutes for questions. Thank you, again, dr. Bright. You have a distinguished career. Youre one of our countrys leading Public Health experts on how to respond to pandemics and National Security health threats. Youre the first Government Official whos been on the inside seeing everything firsthand to come forward and share an unvarnished experiences share unvarnished experiences about what really happened from january to the time you departed b. A. R. D. A. In april of this year in dealing with the virus. So i want to make sure i understand what youre telling us. You stated in your written testimony, a window of opportunity is closing, but it is not yet closed. What do we need to do with the time left to get it right and if we dont, what do you mean when you say 2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history . Dr. Bright chairwoman eshoo, thank you for your question. The window is closing to address this pandemic because we still do not have a standard, centralized, coordinated plan to take our nation through this response. I believe with proper leadership and collaboration across government, with the best science leading the way, we can devise a comprehensive strategy. We can devise a plan that includes all of americans and help them help us guide us through this pandemic. But time is running out because the virus is still spreading everywhere. People are getting restless to leave their homes, and we have to make critical decisions on how to balance the economy and science. My concern about this fall is compounded by my knowledge and preparation and response to many years of influenza outbreaks. Pandemic influenza outbreaks and seasonal influenza outbreaks. In our country in 2017, we had nearly 79,000 people die in the u. S. From influenza. That, coupled with a covid19 resurgence this fall, could be devastating for our Health Care Systems and for americans. We have a limited window of opportunity to get plans in place to address both of those. Ms. Eshoo thank you. When you look at the first four months of this year, would you describe the governments and the administrations response as a success or failure . Dr. Bright i believe we could have done better. I believe there are critical steps that we did not take in time. Ms. Eshoo was there a failure to respond when you correctly pushed to claim early virus samples or to obtain early virus samples from china so we could develop critical medical countermeasures . Dr. Bright from my perspective and working with companies that develop drugs and vaccines and diagnostics, viral samples are critical. As soon as we were aware this virus could pose a significant threat to human lives, i began pushing for those virus samples. And i met frustration and ms. Eshoo and when did you do that . Dr. Bright i did that in the office of the secretary azar in january to push for the virus samples. Initially mentioned on january 23, and the strong push on january 27 for those virus samples. Ms. Eshoo and was there a failure to respond with the needed urgency when you correctly pushed to ramp up production of masks, respirators, syringes, swabs . Dr. Bright congresswoman, weve known for quite sometime that our stockpile is insufficient in having the personal protective equipment. Once the virus began spreading and became known to be a threat, i did feel quite concerned we didnt have those supplies. I began pushing urgently in january along with industry colleagues as well. Those urges, those alarms were not responded to with action. Ms. Eshoo was there a failure to take immediate action when you correctly pushed to acquire additional doses of the drug remdisivir, which is the only drug so far that has appears to be at least mildly effective, thank god, for treating people with covid19 . Dr. Bright there was no action taken on the urgency to come up with a plan for acquisition of limited doses of remdisivir, nor distribute those limited doses of remdisivir once we had Scientific Data to help those just a infected with the virus. Ms. Eshoo instead of your instead of acting on your recommendations, was the action of others to try to cut you out of meetings, marginalize your participation . Dr. Bright i was told that my urgings were causing a commotion and i was removed from those meetings. Ms. Eshoo my time has expired. I now recognize the gentleman the Ranking Member of the subcommittee, dr. Burgess. Mr. Burgess i thank the chair. Dr. Bright, i hope, as it is clear to you, everyone on this dais on both sides appreciate you coming before us today even though we are frustrated of having this hearing without having a full understanding of the facts. Just to clarify youre , testifying in your personal capacity and not on behalf of the agency or administration . Dr. Bright thats correct, sir. Mr. Burgess thank you for that. Let me ask a question about the hydroxychloroquine, maybe a little more broadly, the disease modifying drugs that have been looked at for therapy for this disease. I ask about hydroxychloroquine because it does seem to be central to whatever disagreement department ande administration. Hydroxychloroquine was initially identified as a potential for one,ic because, its antiinflammatory effects and its ability to calm things in the immune system. As we know, one of the features of this disease is the overwhelming cytokine response that overwhelms the host. There also may be an effect of blocking the virus at the point of contact with the cell. Certainly something that probably deserves a little investigation. Again, its not the only one. There were some other drugs. I think if i am correct, b. A. R. D. A. Is supported with investments. Two others which are thought to have similar impacts on the ability to suppress the response the cytokine response to hydroxychloroquine, mi correct in that . Dr. Bright there are a number of drugs that we were evaluating initially, congressman, that we were considering to conduct clinical studies to get further information that they really had an impact and if they were safe to use in patients that would impact this virus. Mr. Burgess do you have available to you the dollar amounts that b. A. R. D. A. Appropriated or authorized for each of those two drugs . Dr. Bright i dont have those numbers available with me now. Mr. Burgess would you be able to make them available to the committee . Mr. Burgess i believe h. H. S. Could make those available. B. A. R. D. A. Could probably make those investments available. Mr. Burgess were you concerned about hydroxychloroquine when you made those was the concern with hydroxychloroquine, which became paramount in your disagreement with the administration, was it already established when you made these other investments in similar medications . Dr. Bright the my concerns around the safety of hydroxychloroquine in people infected with the covid19 virus , reflective of the scientific review that we received from an Interagency Group of clinicians and regulatory experts and scientists. At the time that we learned about hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, there was limited Data Available and our proposal and actions were to see if we could identify a source of that drug so the n. I. H. Could conduct a randomized control clinical controlled Clinical Study. Thats a similar action we took with remdisivir. Once we thought remdesivir had promised, from data coming from china. N. I. H. Did a Clinical Study to evaluate remdesivir. Thathydroxychloroquine, was also our preferred plan of action. Mr. Burgess you of course, authored the letter to the f. D. A. Asking for the emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine . Dr. Bright i was directed as a b. A. R. D. A. Director from the office of h. H. S. Secretary to put in place an expanded Access Program to make chloroquine donation from bayer available to americans through a unique opportunity that would utilize an app and perhaps make it available to americans who are not under close supervision of a health care provider. Mr. Burgess of course, this hearing not hearing on hydroxychloroquine, i, of course, would welcome a robust hearing on therapeutics and the Research Going on, what weve invested in, what is panning out. I note that kazara and the other medication may not have panned out and i think the Manufacturing Company for kazara announced they will discontinue part of the Clinical Study because it looked unlikely to help covid patients. I will tell you, since starting this since you identified , yourself at this hearing and got noticed, im hearing from a lot of doctors. My state, around the country, who have experienced using hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, coupled with zinc and zinc,mycin and theyre reporting significant benefit if is used if it is used early enough in the course and may eliminate the need for hospitalization and a ventilator. We should look into it and would just be interested if you did that as part of your duties at b. A. R. D. A. . Ms. Eshoo the gentlemans time has expired. Mr. Burgess can the gentleman answer the question . Would the witness be able to answer the question . Ms. Eshoo you may. Dr. Bright sir, i believe its important. I have heard those anecdotal stories as well and they were not conducted in the context of a randomized, controlled Clinical Study. Its very difficult to understand data from those type those types of observational studies or anecdotal stories. So the drug might have some benefit in some population but we wont know that until we have it from a truly randomized, controlled Clinical Study. Many of those studies are ongoing now. Some of the studies we are starting to see data from and those have not showed overwhelming evidence of benefit from the use of hydroxychloroquine in those patients. But the different studies are devised to look at different angles of it as you most as you described. Ms. Eshoo the gentlemans time has expired. [overlapping voices] we all want to be fair to each other. The gentlemans time has expired. The chair recognizes the chairman of the full committee, mr. Pallone, for his five minutes of questions. Mr. Pallone thank you, madam chair. And let me just say, dr. Bright, thank you for your courage in being here. When i was younger, we used to read a book by president kennedy called profiles and courage, and, you know, your courage in being here reminds me of some of the people i read about in that book. I am concerned, dr. Bright, that the Trump Administration does not have plans for a nationwide Vaccine Program to ensure that once a vaccine is approved well be able to quickly make it available to everyone. In other words, i dont want to see the same mistakes by the Trump Administration, the incompetence that they had with the supply chain and the testing repeated with the vaccine. And you stated at the outset of the pandemic in january, you began urgently pressing h. H. S. Officials to provide the necessary resources to begin Vaccine Development but that your pleas fell on deaf ears. As the pandemic progressed, you said you were alarmed by the pressures coming from some Administration Officials for your agency to invest in drugs and vaccines, i quote, without proper scientific vetting or that lacked scientific merit. Can you tell us where we are now in the hunt for a vaccine and where we could have been had the h. H. S. Leaders made Investment Decisions sooner that were based on scientific merit . Dr. Bright thank you, congressman. As we all know, vaccines are very difficult to make. Its nothing you can do quickly and you need multiple shots to try to make a vaccine. There are many diseases weve attempted to make vaccines for through history and we still havent been able to do so. So it takes many opportunities and many different approaches. Right now there are over 100 different approaches for developing a vaccine for this coronavirus. We are confident that hopefully,i should say, that at least one of those or two of those will work. You identified key critical challenges we need to anticipate and prepare for early. Number one is the supply chain for those vaccines. Reagents and buffers and various ingredients that go into a vaccine as well as the glass vials that the vaccines are put into and needles and syringes and then a carefully coordinated distribution and administration strategy. We havent yet gotten to those downstream strategies yet in our government and i think those are going to become a significant issue down the road if we dont plan for that now. The urgent need for funding at the outset of a pandemic is something weve known about through many years of pandemic exercises, even in our august, 2019, crimson contagion exercise, it was highlighted we need at least 10 billion from the outset of a pandemic to start the development of drugs and vaccines. Every day we delay delays the output of that vaccine or drug. So in those early days, my first meeting with secretary azar, i asked for funding for people and for those viruses, the three critical things to get the vaccine started. It took some time to get the funding available through various processes, but what b. A. R. D. A. Did we looked at , other contracts and programs we had to redirect some other funding, even as early as january to be able to initiate contracts or agreements with some companies to start working on those vaccines as soon as possible. Its because of those actions now that not only have those vaccines started, made some progress, but also United States has a placeholder with some of those companies to be able to place orders for those vaccines place orders for those vaccines when they are available. And we did Everything Possible to ensure that those investments were in companies that would build capacity in the United States to manufacture those vaccines. We had to get in line first. Even when the money wasnt fully there to complete the development program. Thats what we did. Mr. Pallone i guess my concern is, im very critical of the administration in terms of their i call it incompetence with the supply chain, with lack of testing. Im afraid the same thing is going to happen with vaccines. Once this and the distribution. Should i be concerned based on your experience . Dr. Bright absolutely, sir. Were already seeing those challenges with limited doses of remdesivir with data were getting that it has some benefit in people and we have limited doses and we havent scaled up production and we dont have a plan in how to fairly and equitably distribute that drug. If you can imagine the scenario this fall or winter, maybe even early next spring when the vaccine becomes available, there is no one company that can produce for our country or the world, it will be limited supplies. We need to have a strategy and plan in place now to make sure we cannot only fill that vaccine, make it distribute it, but administer it in a fair and equitable plan. Mr. Pallone thats not the case . Dr. Bright we dont have it net and its a significant concern. Mr. Pallone thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Ms. Eshoo the gentleman yields back. I now have the pleasure of recognizing the Ranking Member of the full committee, mr. Walden. Mr. Walden thank you, madam chair. I think the witness for being here. Bardas job is to get the vaccine, right . Dr. Bright that is to support industry to make the vaccines. Mr. Walden ok. Is it bardas responsibility to direct the personal protective equipment acquisition distribution, the p. P. E. , is that part of your responsibility at barda . Dr. Bright barda plays a role in pandemic preparedness for our nation and we prepare and align and exercise with our other federal agencies. We are also familiar with the critical gaps in the supply chain. Barda isnt responsible for procuring those items for the Strategic National stockpile, we are aware of those shortages and those needs. What i was doing in my capacity as barda director was raising those concerns and needs with the appropriate group within aspr. Mr. Walden aspr has the responsibility to do that, right . Thats not your direct responsibility. Youre obviously in this discussion, but thats not how it was within barda, correct . Dr. Bright its my responsibility to raise a significant concern about a limited supply or shortage that i think will affect the lives of americans. Mr. Walden did you raise concerns with those on capitol hill and if so who and when . Dr. Bright i raised concern with my leadership, sir. I raised it with the appropriate folks in the Strategic National stockpile and our Critical Infrastructure protection program. Mr. Walden not up not up here . Dr. Bright my role is to raise it to my supervisor. I also did raise that concern, though, in the white house with mr. Navarro. Mr. Walden im interested because were passing these bills. In the future i hope you would or anybody out there listening in these agencies, if youre spotting something thats not working right, we need to know. On the first case of sars covid2 in the u. S. , it was identified in january in Washington State. C. D. C. Put the positive specimen in culture that day, correct . Dr. Bright i believe so. I think its january 20. Mr. Walden ok. Its my understanding the samples from the virus were made available to the u. S. Government and that the c. D. C. Expanded the virus stocks between january 29 and february 3 and shared the b. E. I. On february 4 to enable broad sharing. Now, according to your complaint, after the virus samples were available to the u. S. Government from the Washington State case, and potentially even after the c. D. C. s effort to grow the virus and share with the b. E. I. Repository, you were seeking to obtain a sample of the virus, correct . Mr. Walden why was it not available to you . Were they available to you . Bright i was asking in we january. Wanted to make sure we had a head start to develop a vaccine it was available through the bei resources which was available. I asked the maker that we had the viruses and that they were distributed. Mr. Walden and where did the viruses come from. Dr. Bright some came from dhs and some from cdc. Mr. Walden thats helpful. In some conversations i have been a part of, with nih, they have indicated that the real key here was to get the dna sequence, which china did eventually put out at the end of december or late january. And in terms of going after the vaccine, it was that sequencing that really mattered most to get started on Vaccine Development, and there are other scientists who are very distinguished, who believe the delay in getting the virus sample actually did not set them back. Is that an accurate assessment . Or do you have a disagreement in that view. I know scientists disagree and so do we have here. And so do we up here. But im hearing that having the sequencing really mattered the most and getting a virus important but did not set them back in proceeding to get the Vaccine Development underway. Dr. Bright when it was made available in january, its important to understand that the sequences, some companies could get started with that information. You are still vulnerable because you have another country and their laboratory might be on the internet or database. It could still be challenges, with the National Security when you had that sequence. Mr. Walden its run out or i was going to ask, when they got the sequence. Dr. Bright nih began after the rna vaccine candidate. But without the viruses you cannot tell what the neutral antibodies listed are, or your diagnostics or therapeutics could actually work. You could try to synthesize the virus but it will never be representative and we are spending billions on diagnostics and we want to have the most credible information possible. Mr. Walden thank you. The gentleman yields back. A pleasure to recognize the gentleman from new york, mr. Engel for his five minutes of questions. Mr. Engel thank you madam chair. For holding todays hearing. Doctor, if you were a betting man oh, sorry. Thank you. If you were a betting man, when would you bet that we would a have a vaccine . Dr. Bright thats a very difficult question to answer. I know that there are companies and academic labs working very hard. Normally it takes up to 10 years to make a vaccine, we have done it faster in emergency situations, when we had starting material and a freezer. Before a novel virus, this has not been done yet that quickly. A lot of optimism is swirling around a 12 to 18 month timeframe if everything goes perfectly. We have never seen everything go perfectly. My concern is that if we rush too quickly, and consider cutting out critical steps, we may not have a full assessment of the safety of that vaccine. So it will still take some time. I think 12 to 18 months is an aggressive schedule and i think it will take longer than that to do so. Mr. Engel 12 to 18 months from now or from when this all started at the beginning of the year . Dr. Bright 12 to 18 months from when the particular manufacturers first received the material or information they needed to start developing vaccine. Its critical to know that when we say 12 to 18 months that does not mean for an fda approved vaccine. That means to have sufficient data and information on the safety, if not efficacy, to be able to use on an emergency basis. Thats the consideration that we have in mind as we talk about an accelerated timeline. Mr. Engel thank you. I represent bronx county and Westchester County which is the epicenter of the crisis. New rochelle, new york. While new yorkers have really rallied together and supported their neighbors, but the administration has failed at every turn. The president has sidelined our best scientists, pushed baseless conspiracy theories and more, recently prescribed unlicensed remedies like lysol. And since the early days of the outbreak, the president has encouraged doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to suffering americans despite a lack of evidence supporting its use. On april 24, the president had and picked fda commissioner coming out against the use of chloroquine for covid19 cases. What are the dangers of chloroquine if prescribed incorrectly . What happened when you raised the issue of its use in coronavirus patients with hhs leadership . Dr. Bright our concerns are around the potential use of chloroquine in people who were infected with this coronavirus. There is data with effective use and safe use in malaria patients and other patients. We also knew there were potential safety risks to cause irregular heart rhythms and in some cases death. Our concern was with limited information and knowledge, especially of its use in covid19 infected patients, and the potential for those risks, then we should make sure that any studies with that drug were done in a carefully controlled Clinical Study with a close and watchful eye of the physician so they could respond to the patient if they experienced one of those adverse events. There was not sufficient data at that time to support the use of this drug in patients with covid19 without close supervision. Mr. Engel when you raise that issue of chloroquine usage, with coronavirus patients in hhs leadership, what happened to you . You were removed as the director of barda, is that true . Dr. Bright i believe part of the removal process was initiated because of a push back that i gave when they asked me to put in place and expanded access protocol that would make chloroquine more freely available to americans that were not under the supervision of a physician and may not be confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus. The scientists at fda, barda, and nih and cdc worked hard to put that under strict guardrail so that patients will be in the hospital and under the close supervision of a doctor. And who could not otherwise participate in a randomized controlled study. My concerns were alleviated somewhat by being able to lock that in the stockpile with those conditions. However, my concerns were escalated when i learned that leadership in the department of health and Human Services were pushing to make that drug available outside of the emergency use authorization, to flood new york and new jersey with this drug regardless of the eua. When i spoke outside of the government and shared my concern with the American Public, that i believe was the straw that broke the camels back and escalated my removal. Mr. Engel thank you. Thank you, madam chair. The gentlemans time has expired. A pleasure to recognize the gentleman from kentucky, mr. Guthrie for his five minutes of questions. Mr. Guthrie thank you very much. Thank you, dr. Bright for being here. We appreciate it very much. Reading your complaint, i want to point out that the chairman said earlier, i talked about the lack of urgency and implied the president s lack of urgency, most of my constituents want to know that things are getting done and where is the president on this. You are having issues with the leadership at health and Human Services and you are giving them recommendations. If they are not accepting your i would fairly, surmise that should go to the white house. So the president is unaware what you are putting forth. Because reading from your complaint it says that the white house trade advisor, Peter Navarro, shared their sense of urgency. So talking about the urgency in the white house, you have a meeting with him on saturday, he calls you back in on sunday, you prepare your recommendation with a memo for Mick Mulvaney. So essentially, the president. So you meet with the leadership of hhs, meeting with the president , Mick Mulvaney, and the meeting with navarro on saturday, the memorandum on sunday and on monday, it says a National Security Council Policy for dating committee met with and directed hhs to implement navarros recommendation. The push by the white house created tension between dr. Bright and hhs political leadership. I dont know how you could be more urgent in government and having a meeting on sunday, and action on monday once he got to the president s attention. So we appreciate that. Im a Ranking Member of oni, which does investigations. Im looking at the process of putting at this hearing together. As we read through your complaint, the only way we have it is because you made it public. In your complaint, there are different exhibits that you talk about and we are having a hearing today, there are 33 exhibits referenced in your complaint which are not public. We got them through the Washington Post, thats how documents were made available for this hearing. So the 33 exhibits that are not made public, that are referencing a complaint, would you make those available to the committee . Do you have them and can make them available to the committee . If we are using your complaint for this hearing, we need to have the documentation. May i address that . Dr. Bright i dont have a problem. We will take that under advisement and get back to you. Mr. Guthrie and reading through there may be privacy considerations in the documents so we need to look at the documents carefully. Mr. Guthrie and if we read through the email chains that appearde available, some complete and some are not full would you so i would like to address that as well, the problem is when dr. Bright was removed from his position he was locked out of his email. He does not have access to his email. Mr. Guthrie so the changes you have, we have. Thats correct. Dr. Bright and i could address this, thats correct. I was immediately locked out of my email by april 20 of this year. I did not have full records available to me, however i believe i laid a Solid Foundation in my complaint, as detailed as i could be, for the office of special counsel to be able to conduct an investigation. I believe as part of their investigation they will be able to access those emails and those individuals to get the full story and the full information. Mr. Guthrie it would have been helpful for us as well. Have you shared any of these exhibits with the majority that have not been shared with us in the Minority Side . Dr. Bright i believe you have whats available in the Public Domain and the rest has been submitted to the office of the special counsel. I have not made it available to anyone directly. To the gentleman, the minority and majority members all received the same packet of information. Mr. Guthrie which is available to the public. Which was available in the Public Domain. Mr. Guthrie are there any other documents in your possession or accessible to you that are not included in the exhibits in the complaint but are nonetheless relevant to your allegations . If so will you provide those . Dr. Bright i believe i have provided the information i have available to me at this point. If i had access to my email from hhs, there may be additional supporting information and that email. I do not know the status if that has been deleted or why doordash , i have notr wiped had access. Mr. Guthrie i appreciate your answers. I yield back. A pleasure to recognize the gentleman from north carolina, mr. Butterfield for his five minutes of questions. Mr. Butterfield thank you, for coming today and your 25 years of service. I would like to ask about your efforts to address supply shortages for administering covid19 test, according to your account as the covid19 testing ramped up, you asked for an inventory of the Strategic National supply availability of testing supplies including swabs, viral transport materials, and extraction buffers. You learned that the National Stockpile did not stock these items. After that, you learned that was asource of swabs manufacturer in italy, the center of the covid19 outbreak in italy. It is my understanding that this information prompted you to reach out to the dod agency that had previously assisted your office with International Transportation of supplies related to ebola. My question is, why did your Office Contact dod at this point . Dr. Bright it was quite a surprise to me that the urgent ramp up in testing did not include the critical supplies needed to support the rampup of testing, including the materials you mentioned, and i was quite alarmed to learn from sitting behind the cdc director, redfield, that we were going to experience a shortage of swabs. I was even more surprised that our Strategic National stockpile did not have any of those in supply. My urgency to find a solution to that was supported by the fda director of the center for cdr h devices and diagnostics at the fda. Once i confirmed there was a shortage, it was critical to find a solution. That was by partnering with our department of defense colleagues who worked with us for the ebola response. We worked with them to ship a dose of the ebola vaccine from germany to the United States to rapidly respond to the outbreak in africa. It was a natural occurrence or response from me and my upleagues in barda to come with a solution like that. Mr. Butterfield where there any restrictions in place in italy that would require secretary azar to move forward with the request of the dod . Dr. Bright what we needed to enact the air bridge was our secretary, secretary azar to , make a request of the secretary of defense. My colleague and i raised the issue, and it was clearly not a topic that wanted to be that he wanted to be discussed on that day. We were rebuffed, saying that he did not want to talk about swabs right now. Both my colleague and i raised this concern repeatedly in that call. Knowing it was critical and time sensitive, and we had a critical shortage of these swabs, i placed a call to mr. Navarros office once again and asked if mr. Navarro could offer some assistance in contacting the secretary of defense to get clearance for dod to put the airplanes in place under the contract we have. That happened in a very quick turnaround within a matter of minutes. The permission from the secretary of defense we were able to start that within two days. We have transferred back over 25 million swabs. Mr. Butterfield you are saying you alerted Peter Navarro about this issue, is that right . Dr. Bright yes. Mr. Butterfield and with hours he had coordinated with the dod to transport the swabs. This seems like a logical response to the analysis that you have provided, whats perplexing to me is why anybody would resist such an initiative . Its a rhetorical question i wont ask you to answer that. Finally, we still dont have enough testing supplies, i dont understand how or why that is possible. I understand converting an auto plant might take some time to build ventilators, but how can we be struggling to get adequate and simple supplies like swabs. What does this say about the federal response about the outbreak . Dr. Bright it says to me that there is no master coordinated plan on how to respond to this outbreak. We dont have a strategy or a plan in place which identifies each of those critical components, and we dont have a designated agency sourcing those components and coming up with a strategy to make sure that we have those supplies when we need them. We need this comprehensive National Strategy. End this includes every component to make sure that we respond and protect american lives. Mr. Butterfield thank you dr. Bright, you are a great american. I yield back. The gentleman yields back, a pleasure to recognize the gentleman from virginia, mr. Griffith. Mr. Griffith thank you. It seems like mr. Navarro has done a good job of listing the questions. I wish we had more information available, its not your fault, but i wish we had done this to through regular channels. I wanted to ask questions about the supplies being available. I got the impression from prior testimony that project bio us to putt you urged 700 million in 2018 and 735 million in 2019 and that was supposed to take care of some of that, and my misunderstanding project bio shield . Dr. Bright its used to invest in Late Stage Development of drugs and some diagnostics. That did not help on this at all . Dr. Bright not on this at all. Mr. Griffith that being said, and i would hope that we have had everything available to us and i understand that may not be your fault, but it does create issues. Everythings going crazy, people of all kinds of things going on, this hydrochloric chloroquine comes up and there are some email exchanges in exhibit 54 from your documents, indicating that a christopher writing that we should take a look at this, im paraphrasing, but it says especially when we have few or no options. One of the frustrations i have had for years with our community trying to respond to all kinds of different diseases is that we want to have the doubleblind studies in place and the science which makes sense if you have an alternative. But when you have few or no options, it seems to me you would go after those things that are available. If hydrochloric when is one at roquine is oneo at one point and remdesivir in the other doubleblind study, has that already happened . And i have an article from the Richmond Times dispatch, april 15, where a doctor used high doses of vitamin c and another drug, these are all floating out there and doctors are using all kinds of things because we dont have other options. Im wondering what was the great hesitancy to at least let doctors try, and even if anecdotally it was having some effect wouldnt you have to have , that available in order to do the tests . And if you have few or no options, why wouldnt you want to go down that pathway . Dr. Bright we want to make sure the drugs we consider are safe. And effective. The highest priority is safety. Many of the studies that we have our are anecdotal evidence are reports that we have had which did not include a thorough safety vetting of those drugs. There are known side effects with some of the drugs, many were repurposed, they were not built for this. We knew about some potential safety concerns and we did not have any evidence of how those safety concerns would appear in people infected with this virus. This virus takes over a lot of your body and infects multiple organs, causing significant inflammation and multiorgan shut down before death and acute respiratory distress which turns your lungs into a brick. Mr. Griffith it is scary stuff and you said hydrochloroquine, it affects your heart. If it is showing some promise, why would we not want to accept an offer from a manufacturer to have it out there for widespread use if the doctors chose, like the doctor in richmond where they used it in this case and it did not work. So he tried something else. I think thats really what we are going to have to do in an emergency situation, am i not correct . Dr. Bright we need to do it carefully. We have to make sure we have the information available. We are thinking outside the box. Mr. Griffith cant we be so careful that we accidentally kill people . Dr. Bright we can put up a Clinical Study in less than a week, its important to use Clinical Data and if we know there are potential risks we need to make sure that we are cognizant of them and that the drugs are used in a safe and controlled manner. Mr. Griffith i appreciate that. Let me say this. Its our job to ask tough questions. But just like you found friendly ears in the white house, you may have found some friendly ears in the white house. In 2018 you were talking about vaccines and offshore production, and i asked you to let me know if there was anything we could do to get onshore production. I never heard from you. Im happy to help. Im with you on a lot of these issues. I dont know whats going on behind the scenes. We have to investigate that, today was not the day to do that investigation, we dont have enough information. A lot of stuff is not here for us. But dont hesitate in the future, if you see something, let us know on both sides of the chair gentlemen yields back. A pleasure to recognize the gentleman from california, miss matsui for her questions. Ms. Matsui thank you for appearing before us and for your public service. You described a series of missed opportunities leftleft our up that our country woefully unprepared for the coronavirus. Many americans are eager to return to normalcy. But to even begin to safely reopen we need widespread , Testing Capacity and organize a Contact Tracing workforce and , a Health Care System that can handle a surge. And ultimately, a vaccine or therapeutic cure is required. I would like to ask you a series of questions about your warnings to the administration while at barda. Im hoping you could answer whether you believe each scenario will ultimately shorten or lengthen the time it takes for our country to safely reopen and recover from the coronavirus pandemic. On january 10 you began pushing hhs leadership for sequencing and virus samples. Given the importance of the samples for a vaccine and diagnostic development, has the administrations inaction shortened or lengthened our timeline for the reopening . Dr. Bright the samples were critical forgetting started as early as possible. There was a delay in the samples. That means there is a delay in the countermeasures. Countermeasures are critical for reopening our country. Ms. Matsui through january you have made hhs aware of a need for funding to combat the virus. Hhs leadership believed that bardas budget was sufficient, so has the delay of these resources shortened or lengthened the timeline for reopening . Dr. Bright the delay of those resources extended the timeline to make drugs available in Vaccines Available and has therefore extended our ability to respond to the pandemic. Ms. Matsui and you pushed a coordination for a covid19 planning activity across the government. Your request was initially rejected, the doctor suggesting it was not time sensitive. Did the delay shorten or lengthen our timeline for reopening . Lengthened thet timeline for reopening. We needed those early policy discussions to happen as soon as possible. Ms. Matsui and you pushed for hhs to ramp up production in january and march for swabs, syringes, and masks. Hhs failed to act quickly. As this inaction shortened or lengthened our timeline to reopening . Inaction hashat put a lot of lives at risk with our Frontline Health care workers with no time to reopen , our country bringing those people back to us. Ms. Matsui thank you dr. Bright. Many decisions were made outside of the scenarios which can influence when we can safely reopen. But from what in hearing today, if hhs had heated your warnings hed hadhad early weur warnings , could have proactively controlled to the on our country. It appears clear from the whistleblower report that the Trump Administration prioritized political calculation above Public Health with regard to chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine. Despite questionable benefits the Trump Administration , promoted the drug use because it was seen as a big and immediate win. Dr. Bright, do you believe there are other instances where the administration relied on politics rather than science to make the response decisions . And what consequences might those decisions have had on Public Health . Dr. Bright we have a very rigorous scientific review process for all the investments we making drugs and diagnostics, through barda and through our department. Tothere were some attempts bypass that rigorous vetting process that caused me great concern, and actually increased the tension between myself and the other doctor. Scientific vetting, that increased the risk of a drug being evaluated or supported that could have safety concerns. To have they need best scientists in our country weighing in on whether that drug should be evaluated and how it should be evaluated. Ms. Matsui certainly. The Trump Administration waited until april to invoke the defense production act to increase the production of lifesaving medical supplies e masks, months after dr. After doctors began to experience extreme shortages, and three months after your initial january warnings. Should hhs have invoked the act earlier to decrease the debt should increase the production of critical medical supplies like masks and swabs . Dr. Bright im not an expert on the defense production act entirely disease most effectively. I do believe we should have been doing Everything Possible and placing orders early and ramping ramping up supplies ramping up supplies and ramping up reduction of critical equipment as soon as possible, whether that was through the defense production act or other mechanisms. It should be high priority. Ms. Matsui thank you, i have run out of time. And thank you very much for appearing before us today. Chair the gentlewoman yields back, a pleasure to recognize florida, mr. From rep. Bilirakis thank you for service to our country. Focusing on hydrochloroquine, when was the potential use of chloroquine and hydrochloroquine as treatment for the covid19 first brought to your attention . Dr. Bright probably midmarch, between march 10 and march 17, somewhere in that timeframe. Mr. Bilirakis not prior to that . not that i recall. The first i heard of the drug was actually a call and received from dr. Woodcock asking if i had heard of the drug, i had not heard of it or its potential use for covid19 patients. She said there may be Something Interesting to look at and she forwarded a manuscript. And that is the first i learned of the drug itself. Mr. Bilirakis so you were not aware of any news articles and Research Papers discussing the potential benefits of the drug . Dr. Bright i heard anecdotal stories and reports. I cant recall if i did specifically for quarantine orur chloroquine, f chloroquine, but i tried to track the media and scientific journal as well. But i rely on the guidance of the science within hhs, the first i had heard of that was from my colleague, dr. Woodcock at the fda, and then a summary report from our scientists at cdc and barda, indicating the evidence for benefit was weak, and the evidence for safety concerns was stronger. And they did not believe at that point it was something that should be supported. Mr. Bilirakis and what was your reaction, personally . Did you see something worth pursuing initially when you heard from dr. Woodcock . Dr. Bright initially. I trust dr. Woodcock and her scientific judgment immensely. She mentioned it was something we should look at and something we should consider testing in a randomized controlled Clinical Study. I would be supportive of the team reviewing that protocol and that information to see if it , should be used. Mr. Bilirakis i have heard from from experts, and im certainly not an expert in this area, that the drug, that we are talking case,in this hydrochloroquine, if it is used, first of all, timely. Because i understand that theres a window there as far as patient, the efficacy of the drug. Have you heard this that if its properly, theres a small window there for the patient as far as risk is concerned . Can you elaborate on that if you have heard that . And again this is not from a , layperson, this is from an expert. Mr. Bilirakis we have seen anecdotal data from different physicians that they believe , that they have seen benefit or patient improvement from use of this drug, in either combination with an antibiotic or zinc or vitamin c or other things. But there was never sufficient evidence from a randomized controlled study to show benefit would outweigh the risk. Thats why the nih and 40 other institutions around the world were conducting randomized controlled clinical studies to look at the benefit either in late stage treatment or earlystage treatment. Most of the data coming out from those clinical studies to date have not shown an overwhelming level of evidence that it has benefits and those patients. It does not mean that it might still have some benefit in individuals in a case or two in different studies, or if physicians believe they see a benefit in their patients. But in the context of a randomized controlled study, we have not seen an overwhelming level of benefits. Mr. Bilirakis have you reviewed the studies in other countries, such as france and possibly japan on these . Just want to know, because my constituents asked these questions. Do you take those studies into consideration when you make these decisions . Dr. Bright we absolutely do. We look at the quality of the studies. We look to see if they were done with the right controls in place and the right sample size. Was that statistically relevant or just a few people . Was it 20 people . Or was it 2000 people . That adds to the power of the data itself. Many of the studies we saw early only included a few patients and it was unclear, even from the description of some of those studies that were not in previewed journals, were not previewed journals, peerreviewed whether all of the patients were treated the same, whether they had full participation through the Clinical Study itself. And looking at the statistical power of many of those studies, they are very small. Its difficult to understand the benefit. We also saw study that the va hospital conducted with hydroxychloroquine that showed that people treated with it appear to have a higher rate of death than those who were not treated with hydrochloroquine. That study as well has weaknesses, no study is perfect. You take all of the evidence into account when you make a decision on how to further study the drug or use that drug. Mr. Bilirakis its my understanding, not my constituent but a u. S. Citizen, a veteran, was cured, again, this is just from what i have heard, from the drug. And that was a late stage case, but ive also heard of earlystage cases as well. So i wanted to get that on record. Thank you. Yieldsthe gentleman back. A pleasure to recognize the florida, ms. Rom castor, for her five minutes of questions. Ms. Castor dr. Bright, thank you for speaking out to save lives. I read your whistleblower filing, and i want to ask about the n95 respirators. These are essential personal protective equipment, they are not the cloth masks or surgical masks that Everyday Americans are encouraged to whereby the cdc. Dr. Bright are n95 respirators , necessary to save the lives of nurses, doctors, emts and those , on the front lines . Dr. Bright yes, they are required essential personal protective equipment to help protect healthcare workers from getting infected. Ms. Castor and this is not hypothetical concerned. Just last week, the l. A. Times reported a tragic story of a nurse, celia marcos, who appears to have died because she lacked an n95 respirator when she rushed into a hospital room to try to save a covid19 patient who had stopped breathing. And in this brave nurse is not the only one. At ading to the staff detroit hospital, hundreds have tested positive, and the cdc reported over a month ago that over 9000 Health Care Workers had already contracted covid and dozens have died. And i checked with my tampa Bay Area Health providers, and one hospital said that n95s are difficult to procure. She says there is a dire need for n95s. One of my Community Health centers says that we are continuing to struggle to get n95s. There are so many folks trying to sell knockoffs and a large tampa Bay Area Health system said the supply chain remains inconsistent and irregular, and there are remaining as we head into the fall, for n95 masks. The demand will increase due to the flu season and the presence of covid19. Dr. Bright, you understood that america would face a shortage of respirators in january. Is that right . Dr. Bright we understood that america would face a shortage of n95 respirators for a Pandemic Response in 2007. And we have exercised and known and evaluated the number almost every year since 2007. It was exercised even as late as 2019, august, and in terms of contagion, that we would need 3. 5 billion n95 respirators in our stockpile to protect our Health Care Workers from a Pandemic Response. Representative castor and you sounded the alarm repeatedly, but were ignored by the Senior Leadership at the department of health and human explain what steps you took, and the response you received . Dr. Bright we knew going into this pandemic that critical medical equipment would be in short supply. I began getting alerts from industry colleagues in the mid and late january, telling me that from the industry view, the supply chain was diminishing rapidly, telling me that other countries that we had relied on to supply many of these masks where blocking export and stopping the transfer of those masks to the United States. I learned china was trying to buy the equipment from United States producers and have it shipped to china so they could make more. In each of these alerts, and there were dozens of these alerts, i pushed this forward to our leadership, and asking our Senior Leadership team, and i pushed this to our Critical Infrastructure Protection Team , i pushed those warnings to our Strategic National stockpile team, that has the responsibility for procuring those medical supplies for our stockpile. In each of those instances, i was met with indifference saying , they were too busy, they did not have a plan, they did not know who is responsible for procuring those. In some cases they had a sick child and they would get back to it later in the week. A number of excuses, but never any action. It was weeks after my pushing that finally after a survey was sent out to manufacturers and producers of those masks, i5page survey asking the producers if they actually made those masks. Representative castor in your whistleblower filing, you discuss a february 7 meeting of the Department Leadership group, where you urged the department to focus on securing n95 masks. Can you describe what happened at that meeting . Dr. Bright they informed me that they did not believe there was a critical urgency to procure masks. They conducted some service, talked to a few hospitals and some companies, and they did not yet see a critical shortage. I indicated that we knew there was going to be a protocol a critical shortage of these supplies, and that we needed to do something to ramp up production. They indicated that if we noticed a shortage, we will simply change the cdc guidelines to better inform people who should not be wearing those masks to save those masks for , our Health Care Workers. My response was, i could not believe you could sit and say that with a straight face. It was absurd. Castor in fact, it took three months from your initial warning, until mid april, for the federal government to evoke its authority under the defense production act to require the production of millions of more n95 masks. And even then, the administration required the production of only 39 million masks, which is far fewer than what you and other experts had said we would need. What was the consequence of that three month delay and inadequate response . Were lives endangered . Dr. Bright lives were endangered and i believe lives were lost. We were forced to procure the supplies from other countries without the right quality standards. So even our doctors and nurses in the hospitals today are wearing n95 marked masks from other countries that are not providing sufficient protection that a u. S. Standard mask would provide them. Some of those masks are only 30 effective. Therefore, nurses are rushing into hospitals thinking they are protected, and they are not. Representative castor thank you for your courageous effort. Chair the gentlewomans time has expired, a pleasure to recognize our colleague from indiana for his five minutes of questioning. Dr. Bucshon thank you for testifying. I appreciate it. I was a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon who had been in health care 430some years, and i will not ask a question about hydrochloroquine. I want to comment on how the medical Community Response to this type of thing. Doctors across the country will use drugs off label in a circumstance where they dont have or see a viable alternative to that. And i think this was one of those circumstances. Im hearing from doctors across the country. And look im with you, you have , to have a doubleblind study, you have to have proof in normal circumstances. But in this situation, i think a little bit of understanding and leeway from the federal government is in order. We do want to ensure the safety, this is a drug that has been proven safe for many years in the appropriate doses. It does prolong the qt interval , as you have outlined, which can lead to cardiac arrhythmias if not used properly. But i will tell you when states , try to stop doctors from using this, there was such a backlash that they had to back away from it, because the physicians in the community wanted to use it. So doctors like me in the real world, if things are working, anecdotally, they will not wait for the bureaucracy to approve it. I want to get that on the record. Im saying this is why doctors are using this drug. Whether its right or not, the data will show. But if two years from now we say, thattudies and stuff really would have worked, and the government stopped that from being used, if i was a family of a person that was stopped from getting hydroxychloroquine, i would be pretty mad. I want to talk about the supply chain issues as it relates to the personal protective equipment. And i think theres enough blame to go around in the federal government about what happened there. After h1n1, the National Stockpile was depleted and we did not replenish them. We have had people on both sides of the aisle talking about this. And i think there is some blame to go around. I dont want to be accusatory but you know, but i do want to , go over some of the facts about barda as it relates to the masks. A Washington Post report in 2015, the Obama Administration and a company now known as lmn halyard announced a project to develop rapid pandemic mass production. According to federal contracting records, in 2017 hhs signed off , on a 3. 3 million within an m payment to build a machine that could turned out thousands of respiratory masks at a high rate of speed during a pandemic. However, in september of 2018, cnbc reported that the machine was never built. Bardas 1. 5 billion with a b budget, the Washington Post reported there was not money to pay for the project. Why was the project scrapped and , did you sign off on that decision . Dr. Bright that project with halyard was to build a novel new machine to make respiratory protection masks faster as you , have described. And the Technical Team must have reviewed the proposal for further investment in the next step in that machine. The investment to date was made to design the machine, build the machine and im not even sure. Dr. Bucshon were you the head of barda in 2018 . Dr. Bright in 2019, i was the director of barda. Dr. Bucshon money was allocated from hhs to barda to do this and i would not expect it to be scrapped without the director of barda signing off. So did you sign off on it . Dr. Bright its not a scrapped project, sir. I dont know what the proposal was. We rely on a thorough vetting process. The proposal to continue that project never made it to me, so if it wasnt approved, it did not make it through the proper venting process at barda. The decision to end continue that project was not brought to me. Dr. Buchson i find that surprising but i will take your , word for it. The person who hired you told the Washington Post that that contract was part of an explicit strategy to surgical mask production. We are here now, and we dont have it. So we are dealing with the consequences of that decision. And in addition to the halyard, and is my understanding i am running out of time. So what i will say to doctors across america, its easy for us to sit in washington, d. C. Whether we are members of congress or we are agencies, and talk in the abstract about people dying in our intensive care units. But when you are at the physician at the bedside and theres a medication that has promise, and has the safety profile that we understand, doctors will use this medication offline. And that is what is happening. And whether thats right or wrong, we might take years to prove, but in the meantime, people can die. I yield back. Chair the gentlemens time has expired. Its a pleasure to recognize the gentleman from maryland, mr. Sarpy, for his five minutes of questions. Representative sarpy banes, for his five minutes of questions. Es thankative sarban you, madam chair. Dr. Bright, welcome back to this committee. The United States government deploys millions of dedicated Public Servants working together to achieve our shared goals to promote effective government and to protect the public interest, in this case to protect Public Health. Unfortunate as a scientist and Public Health official that was your charge and you took it seriously. Play, the record shows that your superiors at hhs and potentially beyond common instead of valuing your expertise, squandered and wasted in this crisis, amounting to gross negligence. They ignored your sciencebased plea to pursue critical strategies, like your repeated calls to get virus samples from china and get supplies, masks, respirators, swaps. They have dismissed your warnings about pursuing unproven strategies. They dismissed your concerns about stampeding towards hydroxychloroquine. We have heard about that today. And they sent you on errant missions to find treatments with little therapeutic value all for the sake of satisfying political cronies. You testified about a miracle cure drug, and dismissing your input was not harmless malpractice, because theres every reason to believe that if the input had been heeded, earlyularly your plea for action in the early days of the pandemic it may have saved , thousands of lives. I want to thank you for coming forward and blowing the whistle on this misguided and chaotic response to the pandemic. I am sure that there are conversations, emails, moments in time that you remember like they happened yesterday, inflection points where if the response to your warnings had been heeded, things might be different. And im sure they haunt you and keep you up at night. From january of this year, tell me about one specific moment when you had that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, because you were not seeing the response that you knew needed to happen. I willght congressman, never forget the emails i received from mike bowen, indicating our mask supplier, our n95 mask supplier, was decimated. And he said, we are in deep shit, the world is, and we need to ask. I pushed it forward to the highest level i could and got no response. From that moment, i knew we were going to have a crisis with healthcare workers because we , were not taking action. We were already behind the ball. That was our last window of andthat was our last window of opportunity to turn on the production and save the lives of those healthcare workers. Act. E didnt s yourntative sarbane testimony gives me chills. Because it adds up to one inescapable conclusion, it did not have to be this way. There was another path. Things could have gone differently. The federal response could have been more effective. So here we are, at a moment when our country needs the kind of expertise and sciencebased guidance that you and others like you can offer us these , voices are too often being sidelined. Things are upside down. In you, we have someone who made the right call in the early days , and has been removed from your position. While so many people who made the wrong call still have their jobs. Dr. Bright, when the counsel that you and others offer is cast aside, i know you know this, it means that science and reason are also being cast aside. Thats a dangerous impulse. Its an attitude that deprives our country, of any real chance of getting ahead of this pandemic. But hopefully, we can learn from this. There is still time to put science and reason back into the National Strategy for fighting covid19. We need people like you to help lead us through this. The federal response has got to get smarter. It has to put science ahead of politics, and cronyism, and wishful thinking. Our committee will continue to press for that in the days ahead. And i know that you want to look forward. So tell us, what can we do now to learn from the mistakes of january and february and march and make sure that we navigate , and lead our country through this Public Health crisis . Dr. Bright congressman, we need to install and empower leadership. And we need to unleash the voices of the scientists in our Public Health system in the United States, so they can be heard. Their guidance needs to be listened to, and we need to be able to convey that information to the American Public, so they have the truth about the real risk and dire consequences of this virus and they have the , truth about the consequences of their actions if they dont follow those guidances. And we dont have a single point of leadership right now for this response. And we dont have a master plan for this response. So those two things are absolutely critical. I would large sums of funding have been made available to help us scientists and others respond to this outbreak, and without proper oversight of those dollars, im concerned that they could be misdirected and lost and not put to the right fight. I would urge congress to continue and increase their oversight, and how those funds are being spent, making sure they are prioritized and used appropriately. Thank you for the caution, i yield back. The gentlemans time has expired. A pleasure to recognize the gentlewoman from indiana, miss brooks. Five minutes for her questions. Ms. Brooks with all due respect, the Vice President was named the head of the White House Task force, which was actually a recommendation from a bipartisan blueribbon study panel that issued recommendations years ago and thought the office of the Vice President should be in charge. With all due respect, i believe there is that coordination. Part of what im very concerned, relative to this hearing is the impression being made that there has been no plan. In fact, that is part of what the reauthorization that i worked closely with you and others, so many of us, relied on you all to share with us what we needed to do to reauthorize poppa, which most members of congress did not know, the pandemic preparedness act, and most members of congress and members of the American Public did not know that we had Strategic National stockpiles and we might be short on some of these things until this hit. But we did get that reauthorized. It was signed into law of june 19. Do you recall . Dr. Bright yes. Ms. Brooks and you joined barda right after h1n1 because of your expertise and we rely on your expertise and you became the director in 2016. And you mentioned it, in 07, after the h1n1 pandemic the supply of masks in the Strategic National stockpile was not resupplied. Youve mentioned it that we have had problems. But i have to share with you, members like congresswoman eshoo and i had discussions about this and many of us did not know that. We, as members of this committee did not know and were not told of these shortages of masks, as we work through reauthorization of this important law. Were you aware of this issue, did you push hhs to maintain mass production for purposes of replenishing the Strategic National stockpile before this happened in january . Dr. Bright before 2017 we actually held an annual review of the Strategic National stockpile which was chaired by dr. Lori. Since we have removed the Strategic National stockpile from the cdc management under the management we have not yet had an intercross departmental review of the supplies in that Strategic National stockpile. We went through an annual prioritization process, there has always been limited funding and never enough to top off the stockpile. Ms. Brooks do you know dr. Greg burrell . He led the Strategic National stockpile before this. Did you have conversations with him from 2009 until 2020 about what was in the Strategic National stockpile . Dr. Bright absolutely. The blue Risk Management meeting met on a monthly basis and each year they reviewed and prioritized items that should be purchased by the Strategic National stockpile. That body, which i directed for some time, made recommendations however, was the Strategic National stockpiles responsibility to make those purchases. My time is limited, would you explain what it is. This is a plan that experts like yourself participate in. Plans. Ave been house put forth in september of 2018, a National Bio Defense plan. Did you participate . I did. Many of us did. It was the first time the country had put forth a National Bio Defense plan. Many said it was kind of landmark. I want the American People to know, a lot of folks over a long time have been focused, but we did not still have enough. We did not have masks or gowns. Everyone to know that you had not gotten the dot the job done prior to january. These happened over a very long time. Those of us have been very disappointed to learn what was and was not in the Strategic National stockpile. I thank you for your service and your expertise. But across the board and over many administrations, we did not do enough. Plansan say that those were in place and it was disappointing they were not pulled out and followed. They were not put on the table with a strong leader indicating these were our plans, everyone fall in line and follow through with this plan. I think its important to emphasize the medical countermeasure enterprise which was comprised of many great , we have largely disbanded or dismantled that organization. We have not had the interagency discussions for a number of years. Had one or two restructuringst or reorganizing the organization. The partners and colleagues across the government have not had those venues to talk or coordinate with a number of years to demonstrate what that plan looked like. The gentlewomans time has expired and she has yielded back. The plan to recognize the gentleman from new mexico. You have described pressure ,rom senior Trump Officials treating covid19 despite the lack of scientific support for this treatment. Account, yourour team of experts determined that there were safety liabilities associated with the drug and that accepting the donation could lead to widespread use that is not supported by any Clinical Data. Saidublic Health Experts no data provides clinical benefits treatment or prevention of covid19. Are there safety liabilities associated with chloroquine . Dr. Bright there are, yes. According to the whistleblower complaint, the consensus was that it was advisable to wait for additional Clinical Data before making any recommendations on the use of chloroquine to treat covid19, is that correct . Dr. Bright that is correct. Did bayer move forward and did President Trump say in a press conference at the white house that the drug has shown positive effects on covid19. Was the president accurate . Dr. Bright i dont think it was the bestinformed statement. In the conference, the president also said the drug had been around for a long time, so we know things dont go as planned, it is not going to kill anybody. Yes or no, is that statement accurate . Dr. Bright the drg had been around for a long time for its use on malaria, but not for covid19 patients. That is a different indication and different clinical outcome. Is it true that within days of that press conference, you received urgent instructions from h. H. S. General counsel, passed from the white house directing you to make the drug available to the public . Dr. Bright it is true. That the pressure put you in a difficult position . Dr. Bright yes. How did you handle this pressure while still trying to protect the American People . Dr. Bright we had to come up with an alternate solution that our administration would accept. Yes or no, did the administration respect this compromise . Dr. Bright they accepted it eventually. The emergency authorization option was accepted by the administration. What i am aware of, and i would agree, is that of h. H. S. Assistant secretary for health, admiral giroir, on april 4, said this compromise matters and that the drug needed to go to hospitals. There are only 24 hours in a day, and you and an hour your team had to spend on chloroquine was an hour you could not work on the crisis. Did the president s obsession with this issue distract you and your team from the mission of saving lives . Dr. Bright we received a prioritized and put the protocol in place within 48 hours. It was extremely distracting to dozens of federal scientists who were focused on the coronavirus outbreak. They had to set aside all other work to put together this protocol in the 48 hour director time period. Did it distract from efforts to prepare for the crisis, including securing p. P. E. And wrapping up testing and production of other supplies . Dr. Bright it distracted from the efforts of developing other vaccines and drugs. Dr. Bright, just yesterday, the president questioned the testimony of dr. Fauci when discussing children and schools. The president insisted that, it has very, very little impact on young people. Yes or no, do we know that his statement is accurate . Dr. Bright there is a lot we dont yet know about this virus. It is really concerning over the last few weeks as we are getting more and more data out of new york and other places where they have had high numbers of infections the impact of the virus on children. It is a very different presentation and outcome in children than we see in adults. It is very concerning and we dont have an answer for that. We should proceed cautiously and not have any knowledge or hope that we have everything and not have any knowledge that we know everything about the virus. Quote, without implementation of the steps i and others have outlined, 2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history. Yes or no, do you believe this administration is doing everything they can to prevent the darkest winter, and what more should they be doing . Dr. Bright i believe there is work we still need to do. We still need we need still a comprehensive plan. Everyone across the government and everyone in America Needs to know what the plan is and what will they play. There are critical steps we need to do to prepare for the winter coming. We do not still have enough personal protective equipment to protect our Health Care Workers. We still do not have the supply chains ramped up for the drugs and vaccines. We still dont have plans in place to distribute those drugs and vaccines, and we dont have the comprehensive strategy so americans know which tests do what, what to do with that information, and how to find the virus, trap it, and kill it. There is a lot of work we still have to do. Chairwoman eshoo the gentleman yields back. It is a pleasure to recognize the gentleman from oklahoma for his five minutes of questions. Thank you, madam chair. I would be remiss not to thank you for your continued prayers for my son. It is very kind of you and i really appreciate it. Dr. Bright, you are here on your own time as an individual, correct . Dr. Bright yes. Where are you currently employed . Dr. Bright i am currently an employee of the department of health and Human Services. I am in the middle of the transition between that and the n. I. H. You have accepted the position to n. I. H. . Dr. Bright the position is under discussion at this point. I have not yet accepted that role. Are you currently being paid . Dr. Bright i am currently being paid. From n. I. H. Or from the other department . It is not completely clear to me but i believe it is from n. I. H. So you have been over there since midapril, is that correct . Dr. Bright i have received one paycheck. From n. I. H. . Dr. Bright i think it was still part barda and still part n. I. H. I have had discussions about my onboarding at ih. At nih. So at barda, you may 285,000, is that correct . Dr. Bright that is true. How much are you currently making at the n. I. H. . Dr. Bright i dont think my salary has changed. Still the same . So you have been there approximately one month . Dr. Bright it has been about three weeks since i was removed from my office. Have you reported to the n. I. H. Yet . Dr. Bright i have checked in with the n. I. H. Directors office and discussed the on boarding and fingerprinting process. We had a call just last evening to discuss the framework of my responsibilities that have been envisioned for me at n. I. H. So you have not reported to work but you are still getting paid, correct . Dr. Bright i have been on sick leave. For what . Dr. Bright for high blood pressure. For hypertension. So you are on medical leave . Dr. Bright i have been on medical leave. This week, i transition from medical leave to annual leave so i can manage this. What is annual leave . Dr. Bright Vacation Time. Did you inform your supervisor is about you coming here today or did you need to do that . Dr. Bright i have informed them of ultimately status and i just had a conversation with them last night. So you transferred from medical leave to vacation this week . Dr. Bright i had a conversation with my physician about my hypertension and how we have been managing it over the last few weeks because this has been very stressful to be removed suddenly without explanation for my role and position. It is a life change for me. My physician has been working with me to manage my hypertension and stress. The conversation i had with him last night indicated i am confused. You say you have hypertension yet you are able to do this these interviews, make these reports and prepare for this hearing, yet you are too sick to go into work, but you are well enough to come here. While you are still getting paid from the United States government. Is that correct . Dr. Bright sir, i have been under medical leave. I get that. But if you have been on medical leave and are too sick to do that, but you can prepare for a twohour hearing. Just having a hard time tracking that. I have a hard time understanding that. If you have hypertension and you are too sick to go to the n. I. H. , but you never experienced that in barda . Never had hypertension . Dr. Bright never had the level of stress from being removed from my position while in barda. So this has been very stressful. I get it. People handle pressure quite different, but as director of barda, i feel like you are in quite a stressful position if you are trying to manage the pandemic but you cant manage that, or you could manage that but you couldnt manage her own your own hypertension because you got removed from office, yet you can still receive pay from the n. I. H. , yet you cant show up for work. Then you can prepare for this. I have a hard time understanding this. I know you are a bright individual and very smart, but you are unemployed of the an employee of the federal government. I just want to make sure you are not doing something to deceive the american yet at the same time getting paid by the national government. With that, i yield to the Ranking Member. Dr. Bright, your lawyer appears to have a substantial binder. I know mr. Guthrie asked about the documents. Are those the exhibits to your complaint to the office of the special counsel . Dr. Bright i dont know what they are. I will direct it to the counsel, then. Since she has answered other questions. Are those the exhibits to the complaint to the office of special counsel . Some are. Some are my work products. Some are my notes. They are not appropriate to turn over to congress. Is it appropriate to turn over the documents referenced in the complaint . Not your work product, i respect that. And would you do that . You asked the question initially and i said we would look at the documents to determine whether they are appropriate to turn over. Im just talking about the ones we have partial email chains, screenshots of emails. I think we should have the right to see those documents if we will effectively know the full extent of this complaint. I wish you would commit to turning those over. Dr. Bright, will you turn those over . I think i addressed about. I am asking dr. Bright now . Dr. Bright i sent my full complaint to the office of the special counsel. That is the process i know to follow. Chairwoman eshoo gentlemen, the time has expired. We just want to see what you have submitted so we can evaluate it ourselves. Dr. Bright sir, i understand i dont understand the full process except i was supposed to submit to counsel. I dont understand the legalities of showing that before they have had the opportunity to review that. They have certainly been shared out to the public and the press. The Washington Post has them from some source. They look a lot like what is referenced in your complaint. Other Media Outlets are certainly seeing them. The gentlemens time has expired. We will seek all information that is appropriate to be submitted to the committee. What i circulated or recirculated to all members of the subcommittee were the emails to the public as well as the complaints. That is what was out there. Politico has something, too. I dont know the veracity of it. Any other investigation, we would both be going, he need to see all the documents as a committee. May i address it . Chairwoman eshoo no, we need to move on. Thank you for being here. Can you describe the reactions of the january 23 meeting when you had the all agencies meetings on the covid virus . Could you describe how up to speed they seemed to be . Dr. Bright it was one of our first meetings after the outbreak. I came in with my list of needs. Money, people, and viruses. My request was met with a bit of surprise, puzzlement. I remember secretary azar looking around the room and saying, you need money . Maybe there is money somewhere. And despite the fact that we had had the outbreak in china for some time . Dr. Bright this was january 23 at this point. Can you describe the emailer exchange with mr. Bowen on the mask situation . Dr. Bright i dont remember that specific, but i am sure it was urgent. Im sure he was sending me a notice saying, asking if so you did not ask him to talk to you, he just reached out to you . Dr. Bright yes, sir. How about an email exchange with dr. Kerr, on january 27 . Dr. Bright he reached out to me, i believe this was because that he is a pandemic influenza expert as well and he knows the vital nature of beating these needing those viruses. He was involved in prepping our secretary for a call he had with the Prime Minister in china. We knew that high priority was for our secretary to ask for those viruses. We have had challenges in the past getting viruses from china, even influenza strain viruses. This was a high priority and we needed that. He was alarmed when he wrote to me that morning indicating that the c. D. C. Director had reprioritized and indicated we did not need the secretary did not need to ask china for viruses. It was alarming to us because we knew how critical it was. That sounds incredible in light of what has transpired since then. My major point here is we have a brave individual coming forward as a whistleblower. But he is not alone, there are many other experts, scientists and the manufacturers who realized we were in for as they say, deep shit. Before the administration and the white house began to wake up. What do you think wouldve happened if mr. Navarro hadnt reached out to you and actually responded to you. Where would you be now if he hadnt been able to get one person in the white houses attention . Dr. Bright difficult to speculate where we were. Even when mr. Navarro reached out and strongly suggested that action be taken on february 10, it was conveyed to dr. Catlett that we needed to ramp up production of n95 masks, that order did not go out, that solicitation did not close until march 18. So even with the pressure of mr. Navarro, who i believe shared the sense of urgency around this outbreak, that still did not spare our Strategic National stockpile for that urgently needed action. That is very disconcerting, and the reason we are here today, perhaps. Last question, switching gears and going to the other side of the spectrum. It has been hard to get folks attention here in washington, d. C. On the seriousness of this. I think most people now are convinced this is a very serious issue. I am a little concerned we are going to much the other way in terms of information. You alluded to it here on the vaccines. Some people are under the impression of vaccine will be developed in a couple of months and everything will be fine and i will go back to work. We, unfortunately, have to juxtapose economic issues. They have to have realistic expectations at home. You, i think accurately, indicated that it could take up to 10 years. The quickest we did, i guess, was ebola and i think that was five years. A tough question to ask, and you dont have to answer, but i dont want america to think they cant get back to some semblance of a new postcovid life until a vaccine comes out, because that could take years. And there is a chance that a vaccine will maybe not as effective much like our flu vaccines, with the flu mutating yeartoyear. So i just want to make sure ask you if you would agree that, we cant wait to open up entirely until a vaccine, we have to use some of the other parameters you suggested. Dr. Bright we have to make sure we have scientifically led and driven decisions on when it is safe to reopen america. If it happens before we have a vaccine, if we have a vaccine faster, it is great, but we need to open america sooner, we need to make sure everyone understands the risk of their activities, and everyone has to play a critical part in following those activities to reduce the risk. We have to have a testing plan in place and enough tests to make sure we know people know when they are exposed so they can quarantine and not continue to infect others. And we are also developing a number of therapeutics that could offer a benefit like a prophylactic, it might offer our Health Care Workers protection until we have a vaccine. So there are a number of steps between now and the vaccine. I believe if experts inform americans of the risks and have clear guidance of what will happen if people follow the guidance, it will get us in the process of getting back to work. Chairwoman eshoo gentlemans time has expired. We go to the gentleman from north carolina, mr. Hudson. He has five minutes of questions. First let me say, every whistleblower should be allowed to be heard. It is a core component of keeping our government accountable and run smoothly. But this hearing is not about a whistleblower complaint, it is about undermining the administration during a national and Global Crisis as evidenced by the fact that this hearing is being held in the wrong committee, well before the special counsel finishes his work. To disregard the minority so spectacularly in this hearing only undermines the political only highlights the political nature of this hearing. I hope it will serve as a lesson of what not to do in the respect and gravity of whistleblower complaints so they are not abused for political expediency. More importantly, we have vital work we should be doing. My constituents Want Congress to get back to work. I am glad to be here to highlight the important work that needs to be done. Long story short, we should be examining the 175 billion authorized and appropriated in a bipartisan manner for providers, and what providers still need, and recommendations moving forward. We should be examining gaps and outcomes and access in minority communities. In north carolina, folks back home are scared because coronavirus hits them hardest. Why are we not spending our time today examining this crisis more closely . I hear from providers and hospitals about issues with p. P. E. I know this administration has done extra ordinary things to secure more p. P. E. I want to thank President Trump for his strong leadership. Not only did his administration move quickly, but his travel ban on january 30 was a bold move although it was panned by critics as an overreaction at the time. The president has gone to Great Lengths to overcome the system he inherited. Questions remain about why there is a global shortage and what more congress can do to support the administrations efforts to secure sufficient p. P. E. The questions remain about why there is a global shortage and what more congress can do to efforts to secure ppe. The committee should be working on that question. We have multiple pieces of legislation waiting to be considered to improve the stockpile. We should be examining why the stockpile was allowed to dwindle under Previous Administrations. The solutions to these problems are timely and critical to helping this administration combat this virus and the deadly disease it causes. And hear from quested winds was everyday suffering under these stayathome orders. This crisis is hard for anyone even if they werent suffering from Substance Abuse disorder or Mental Health challenges before they were confined to their homes. The crisis has exacerbated this problem. Why are we not examining the in fact this crisis has had our constituents with Mental Health issues . I appreciate your service to this country. You deserve to be heard. And your was a lower complaint your whistleblower complaint should be given the serious consideration any whistleblower complaint deserves. But we also deserve to have the opportunity to ask questions about serious allegations made against you. I will note again, this is not i will note again, this is not the time and place for this hearing, it is after the special counsel has completed its work. Building on questions from others, an article released yesterday stated your complaint left out a lot of information and context regarding the agencys decision to acquire hydroxychloroquine. You chose not to elevate your concerns to the office of Inspector General, but hydroxychloroquine. Instead kept selected screenshots that did not include full context. Another example, the wall street journal reported that you were in support of acquiring and using hydroxychloroquine. Can you elaborate on what was missing from your screenshots and why you did not elevate your concerns at any time to the office of Inspector General . Daysright in the early when i was aware of the hydroxychloroquine, we were interested in acquiring that drug for its use in a randomized and controlled Clinical Study. When i heard from the doctor that was something we should try to investigate in a randomized controlled study, i even reached out to a company that was licensed and approved to make the drug in the United States to see if they could donate that drug to the nih. I was aware of other efforts ongoing to acquire some of that drug for its use in randomized, controlled clinical studies. I thought we should look into the supply chain, the same way i did with remdesivir. It was only after i learned that that supply being discussed was coming from pakistan and india, from facilities that were not approved by the fda and the drug was not approved for use in the United States, i became increasingly alarmed having the drug in the United States. Second, it was when i learned that the plan was to make the drug available through an expanded Access Program so people could potentially get that drug and not be under the close supervision of a health care provider. That caused significant concern. It is because of that, and the cascading days afterward, that we put in that emergency authorization, with the safety bumpers in ways we could feel comfortable with that the drug would only be used under close clinical observation. In the earlier days, in the email exchange you are referring to, it was before we knew useduld be accused be for expanded access protocol. It was when i thought our efforts to obtain the drug would conductat the nih to randomized, controlled clinical studies. I was relieved that we did to defy some supplies of that drug for those clinical studies. My time has expired, madam chair. I yield back. Chairwoman eshoo the gentleman yields back. Pleasure to recognize the gentleman from massachusetts, mr. Kennedy, for his five minutes of questions. Thank you very much for being here and thank you for your service to our country. Morning, which means the numbers have increased, there are nearly 1. 4 million cases diagnosed of covid19 in the United States and over 80,000 fatalities. Experts believe those are under counts because of after five months of this virus we still have a systemic problem with regards to robust testing. Is that right . States across the country, cases are increasing because of the lack of testing is that right . And you mention your testimony that we have missed Early Warning signs and forgotten pages from our pandemic playbook. You have been the head of barda since 2016. Until recently. Have you experienced any pandemics prior to this one or in your prior Government Service . Dr. Bright we responded to the zika outbreak. We responded to the ebola outbreak, but it did not rise to the level of this pandemic. Mr. Kennedy and you are aware at the end of the Obama Administration that obama put together a playbook in trying to guide in missed rations in how to handle an outbreak, correct . And you are aware that there was a simulation done ingenuity 2017 with an Incoming Administration about how to respond to academic. To a pandemic. Is that right . Dr. Bright yes. Mr. Kennedy and the Trump Administration cut cdc staff located in china from 47 to 14, is that right . Dr. Bright i dont remember the number but i know it was reduced. Mr. Kennedy and you referenced the simulation called crimson contagion, that was done by hhs and begun in january of 2019. Can you briefly shine a little light as to what the findings of crimson contagion were . Dr. Bright it was actually the participants were beyond hhs and covered federal and local some of the significant findings were the need for improved coordination and communication, an alignment between the local state and federal governments and a significant need for personal protective equipment and a significant need for funding. Mr. Kennedy that simulation was based off of a flulike virus based out of china, and it resulted in the infection of 110 million americans, leading to nearly 600,000 dead, is that right . Dr. Bright yes. Mr. Kennedy when did you first have concerns about the potential impact of covid19 on the United States . Dr. Bright early january. Mr. Kennedy were you aware that your supervisor suggested the activation of the defense production act in midjanuary . Dr. Bright i was not aware of him doing that. Mr. Kennedy you mentioned that you had two meetings with secretary azar, and im sure others, but you referenced meetings on january 23 and 27th where you raised concerns to the secretary. You are aware top National Security staff, including National Security advisor mr. Obrien and his deputy raised significant warnings that china was downplaying the effects of the virus. Dr. Bright i did learn that. Mr. Kennedy and you are aware that we sent 17. 8 tons of medical supplies to china in early february. Dr. Bright i am aware of that. Kennedy are you aware that the Trump Administration proposed a budget release calling for a cut to the cdc by nearly 700 million . Dr. Bright im not aware of that. Mr. Kennedy were you familiar with a memo written by Peter Navarro that warned of the impact of the virus . Dr. Bright yes. Mr. Kennedy are you aware it was april 2 when the Trump Administration finally activated and expanded the defense production act months after being warned by you and other senior officials. Dr. Bright i did learn that. Mr. Kennedy are you aware that water itself did not extend the full authority of the dpa and left a haphazard allocation process to states and hospitals to compete against each other . Dr. Bright i dont know the details of that authority. Mr. Kennedy has the Coronavirus Task force actually developed a plan for reopening the country . Dr. Bright im not aware of the full plan to reopen. Mr. Kennedy have they developed principles that the white house has touted as guidelines to reopen . Dr. Bright i have heard of some principles. Mr. Kennedy are states following that plan . Dr. Bright it does not appear that there is a coordinated plan that states are following. Mr. Kennedy so after this recitation of the actions and inactions of this administration over the course of the past six months, can we possibly say this administration has prepared our country for the moment that we are in . And how could we be prepared for the distribution, development and manufacturing of distribution of a vaccine to try to adjust 330 million americans over the course ahead . Dr. Bright i thing we have a lot of work to do to be prepared. Mr. Kennedy thank you, i yield back. The gentleman yields back. Pleasure to recognize the gentleman from missouri, mr. Long, for his five minutes. Should we go to you want to pass . You can reserve. We will go to the gentleman from california, mr. Cardenas for his five minutes of questions. Mr. Cardenas ok. Thank you dr. Bright for being here today. I wanted to tell you that my family, my community, and myself, we appreciate your 25 years of service, specifically when it comes to addressing pandemic outbreaks. Its my understanding that you spent those 25 years leading teams of scientists when it comes to drugs, diagnostics, and Vaccine Development. We appreciate that. When an administration or decisionmakers prioritize politics over science, does that tend to increase or decrease the likely results of the loss of life in the middle of a pandemic . Dr. Bright i believe that the scientists are best equipped to understand how to manage a Public Health crisis. I believe scientists should lead. Mr. Cardenas my question, i will phrase it differently, the scientists are not leading and politicians are leading with the final decisions when trying to address the issues of pandemics that are taking lives, that way of handling it, does it likely increase the lossoflife, or is it likely to decrease the lossoflife . Dr. Bright i believe that scientists leading will increase the likelihood that we can survive this pandemic and move through it. If scientists are not allowed to lead and speak up, i believe it could increase the lossoflife. Mr. Cardenas thank you. How many times in your career have you, personally, actively said i need to enact my right to be a whistleblower . How many times in the last 25 years have you decided to enact your right to be a whistleblower . Dr. Bright this is my first time sir. Mr. Cardenas i knew that answer was simple, i think it was confusing because i made it so simple. The reason why i want to say that is because i believe that you have been incredibly consistent in your willingness to dedicate yourself, your expertise, and your career, to saving lives. Is the lossoflife on your mind was that on your mind when you decided that you needed to enact your right to be a whistleblower . Dr. Bright my career is focused on saving lives. Everything i have done to come forward now is to raise awareness of challenges that we have, things that are not getting done, because i do think it will save more lives. Mr. Cardenas are you aware of the lack of testing in the United States is affected by many pieces of the puzzle in order for people to get testing, whether it is swabs, whether it 95 rated equipment for caregivers to enact safely with the public. Are those all factors that have contributed to our lack of having adequate testing in america . Dr. Bright they are. I dont think anyone has thought through the entire plan completely to understand those critical components for testing. I think theres a lot of confusion about the different types of tests and i think the National Narrative is focused on the number of tests, its not the number so much as it is the right types of test and what americans do with that information. Nobody has really thought through the raw material supply chain to make sure that we can sustain the need to test. Mr. Cardenas that sounds confusing from somebody who has been working at a high level at the United States government in this space that we are discussing. My question is, if we are not implementing in this pandemic to the degree or ability that the United States should or could, what has contributed the most . Was it the lack of scientists recommending up the chain of command . Or was it the people at the top of the chain of command deciding to do things differently than the scientists are strongly recommending . Dr. Bright there is evidence of scientists raising concerns about shortages and other actions that are important to take that were not taken. In my personal situation with the leadership with hhs and i asked my supervisor who was dismissive of the Early Warnings that i was raising. Mr. Cardenas you said early mornings, and despite the early been otherave there examples where strong recommendations were ignored or set aside and other actions were taken . Dr. Bright i believe i have learned of others. The cdc has written several guidelines for reopening america and getting people back to work. Im not sure if all of those guidelines have been reviewed or publicly considered at this point. So theres another example of really hardworking career scientists and their information and their hard work not getting the proper vetting. Mr. Cardenas i have no much time no idea how much time i have left, hopefully a little we have heard boasting from the white house about millions of personal protective equipment, ppe, millions have gone off to america. But to date, we should have had billions gone out throughout america. Isnt that the disparity . Dr. Bright there is a huge disparity, and healthcare workers are having to compromise their protection and health and safety because they have to be creative and reuse a single mask for an entire week or come up with novel sterilization practices that are not proven or tested. That disparity is impacting our frontline workers, and those of the lives we need to preserve so they can treat others. Mr. Cardenas i have family members working in hospitals today on the front lines who are telling me that they are wearing equipment for days at a time, that they are supposed to disposing of several times a day. Gentleman, your time has expired. Mr. Cardenas thank you very much. If someone could do a better job of the clock, i would appreciate it. It kept flipping back and forth. You are right, it got stuck at 4 44 and went to zero and popped up to 1 21. I am watching too. My father was a watchmaker, clock repair man. A pleasure to recognize mr. Long, from missouri, for his five minutes of questions. Mr. Long you contend that your removal was because the Trump Administration and hhs leadership in particular lacked scientific integrity. Do you think that dr. Fauci lacks scientific integrity . Dr. Bright i dont think my removal has anything associated with dr. Fauci at all, i think my removal is because of tensions and actions i took between my supervisor and myself. Mr. Long do you know about dr. Faucis testimony two days before the Senate Health committee . Dr. Bright im aware of that. Leadership ishs so hostile to scientific integrity as you allege, how do you explain dr. Fauci being allowed to testify forthrightly, to serve on a prominent role on the White House Task force and aids Extensive Research efforts . Dr. Bright im not sure what decisions are involved in allowing dr. Fauci to testify or not. Im not aware of what process or decisions are involved in allowing dr. Fauci to testify or not. Mr. Long he was allowed to testify. Dr. Bright i know he was. I thought you asked me if that was appropriate, perhaps could you repeat your question if i have misunderstood it. Mr. Long you are saying hhs is hostile to scientific integrity, and if thats the case, can you expand why dr. Fauci was allowed to testify forthrightly in the committee . If they are hostile, why would you let him testify no holes barred . Dr. Bright im saying my supervisor was not following proper scientific process that we have in place for barda. Im not actually saying the administration is hostile against scientific integrity in all cases. I am saying in my particular situation, in my claim, my supervisor was conducting an inappropriate activity that was going around proper scientific vetting. Mr. Long why did you not bring these concerns to secretary azar . Why did you not bring any of them into the loop . Dr. Bright sir, i believe some of the activities were not isolated with the supervisor, and his senior staff was aware of some of the processes that were being utilized to go around our traditional review process , scientific review process. Mr. Long wouldnt normal protocol in any situation be that you go to the secretary of hhs or his chief of staff or the Inspector General with your concern instead of just gathering them up and deciding one day you are going to dr. Bright i did not decide that, i was pushed out and involuntarily transferred. Mr. Long but you had these concerns, so why didnt you take them to your superiors and maybe we would not be here today . It was not easy for any of us to get here today. Dr. Bright i requested an ig investigation, as is my claim, i think it was in 2018 that they looked into, and i believe it was inappropriate political pressure on our contract activities in discussion about procurement integrity. I dont think that was ever followed through on. Dr. Bright did you bring your concerns to the Inspector General . Esther long did you bring your concerns to the Inspector General . Dr. Bright i dont believe they were submitted to the Inspector General. But i raised those concerns to mr. Long you did not raise concerns with the Inspector General, secretary azars chief. Withright i raised those the secretary of the general counsel. They were present in that meeting. Mr. Long i will take that as a no. He stated that hhs leadership was dismissive about your warning about the outbreak and the pressing need to act. But its my understanding that alertedr. Redfield who the white house and the National Security council about the risk of the virus on january the second, and a High Level Team with the counter proliferation and biodefense directorate quickly began meeting to address the possibility of the pandemic. Do you consider dr. Redfields actions to be dismissive about the threat of coronavirus . Dr. Bright sir, people were aware of the urgency. What was lacking was action and how to address the urgency. When we were raising issues of critical supply chains and medical equipment to protect doctors and nurses, if they were aware of the urgency of the situation and still failed to act, i think thats even more unconscionable than not being aware of the emergency and not acting. Mr. Long in your new position i would recommend that if you have issues, you might go to the head of the department. I yield back. Gentleman yields back. A pleasure to yield to the gentleman from vermont, mr. Welch. Mr. Welch your job, our job is to protect the American People. And this fierce virus can be managed, if done correctly, correct . Dr. Bright i believe so. Mr. Welch and the playbook is established. It is testing, Contact Tracing, and isolation, starting first with social isolation, correct . Dr. Bright nonpharmaceutical interventions and testing are critical first steps. Mr. Welch this virus is across the world, and many countries who have followed the triedandtrue protocol has done better than the u. S. Correct . Dr. Bright we have seen differences in the respond and outcomes. Mr. Welch the john hopkins study that said that the u. S. Had best preparedness, it turned out that we had the worst response. The most cases and the most deaths. Dr. Bright we had the most cases and the most deaths. Mr. Welch i did some calculations. On january 19, south korea determined its first case. On january 19, the u. S. Determined its first case. Dr. Bright january 20 was the u. S. Mr. Welch if we had the same response as south korea, by population, they had 33,000 deaths. We would have saved 50,000 lives. In taiwan, they had the same virus, 22,000 deaths, adjusting for population, that is 60,000 more deaths we have had here. Singapore, 82,000 more deaths. New zealand, 65,000. The question for us here and the American People is why, when we had the best plan and we had the worst execution. Let me go through a few things you have established. Beginning in january, the fda chief asked the hhs if he could start Contracting Companies about the shortages of personal protective equipment and he got correct . By hhs, dr. Bright as i understand. Mr. Welch and before our first case you wanted to convene highlevel meetings about the virus but that was initially rejected. Correct . Dr. Bright true. Mr. Welch on january 23, you demanded urgent access to funding for critical specimens to develop lifesaving medicines but you were told that the spread was under control, correct . Dr. Bright there was not a shared sense of urgency. Mr. Welch you warned others in the administration of there was a need to procure surgical masks. That was ignored . Dr. Bright true. Mr. Welch and you participated in the daily covid19 meeting where you expressed frustration with the slow pace of accessing virus samples and clinical specimens from china. You were reprimanded and you are no longer a part of those meetings, is that correct . Dr. Bright thats true. Mr. Welch so you and others were seeing over the horizon what was coming to our shores. Even before our first case was confirmed. Correct . Dr. Bright we had spent many years preparing for a pandemic. We understood the threat and and what we needed to do. Mr. Welch exactly. It is knowable and manageable. It is fierce and fearsome. But what you have to do is established, is that more or less correct . We just didnt do it. February 25, President Trump gave the assurance that the stock market is starting to look very good, and the coronavirus was very much under control. Were you aware of any medically involved people who had the view that the virus at that time was very much under control . Dr. Bright no sir, i dont think the virus was under control and i dont think many people would agree with me in the scientific realm. Mr. Welch those countries i mentioned include germany, taiwan, new zealand, south korea, singapore. The leaders of those countries accepted that there was a role only the nation could play and the provinces would have to depend on them. I want to go through some of those things. One, establishing a testing protocol, was that done here . Dr. Bright no. Mr. Welch two, acquiring and allocating and distributing personal protective equipment to where it was needed when it was needed, was that done here . Dr. Bright no sir. Mr. Welch we had governors and hospitals competing with each other to try to get desperately needed equipment, isnt that correct . Dr. Bright theres a lot of confusion and competition and bad decisions made to acquire poor quality products. Mr. Welch in any of those other countries i just mentioned, are you aware of the leader of that country at a press conference making recommendations on what kind of medication people should use . Dr. Bright i dont know the details of what happened in those countries, so i dont know. Mr. Welch we had governors here, republicans and democrats, republicans like hogan, phil scott from vermont, who have done a tremendous job. But no matter how good they do their job, can they protect their people without the aggressive intervention of the federal government playing its role . Dr. Bright i think the federal government plays a Critical Role in coordinating, aligning, and making an equitable distribution of those critical supplies. I believe that is what we practiced and exercised in the past, that there would be a Critical Role for a federal lead in coordination with the state, local, and tribal territorial levels. Mr. Welch i yield back. The gentleman yields back. A pleasure to recognize the gentleman from georgia, mr. Carter. To you wish to question or pass . You reserve. The gentleman from california, mr. Ruiz is recognized. Dr. Ruiz. Dr. Ruiz thank you. Thank you for your testimony and service to our country. My heart aches for the family and friends of the over 80,000 in america who have died of covid19 in such a short period of time. In fact, my heart aches for those closer to me, the Riverside County has reported 228 deaths. As a doctor, i appreciate your written testimony that states that science, not politics or cronyism must lead the way to combat the deadly virus. Theres been a lot of hype about cares for covid that have been shown to be ineffective and even dangerous. We are now seeing the very real dangers and consequences of not making decisions based on science. Hydroxychloroquine, which fox news commentators and then the white house repeatedly touted and even encouraged people to use is exhibit a on this list. But there is one drug that is providing some therapeutic benefit. Remdesivir. Two weeks ago, dr. Fauci announced remdesivir showed a clearcut significant positive effect in diminishing the time to recovery. My understanding is that in january and early february, you launched a comprehensive review to assess which drug may have therapeutic benefit and you said remdesivir was the most likely drug to be effective against covid19. Can you describe how you came to that conclusion and who you told in hhs and what the response was . Dr. Bright it came about in a technical review from a number of scientists within hhs. It was also aligned with the scientific assessment from w. H. O. And global experts who looked at every potential drug, and ranked remdesivir as the drug that had the most potential for benefit. Dr. Ruiz who did you tell and what was their response . Dr. Bright we shared that dr. Ruiz who did you tell and what was their response . Dr. Bright we shared that information with my supervisor, and with hhs leadership. We had discussions about the actions that could have the about actions that could have the limited supply. And we had discussions about how to for more remdesivir in case the randomized controlled study came through dr. Ruiz you had the discussion, what was the response . Did anything happen . Dr. Bright no decision was made at that time. Dr. Ruiz my understanding is that Peter Navarro reached out for you to seek your counsel. You told him about your top three concerns, the shortage of masks, the need for a Manhattan Project to develop vaccines in securing adequate supplies, can you tell me if he agreed with you and what steps you took . Dr. Bright he did agree with me on the remdesivir, the masks, and the Manhattan Project. He drafted a memo to the white house chief of staff and Mick Mulvaney to share with the task force. Dr. Ruiz it occurred on february 10, what happened next . To the department procure the needed supplies for remdesivir . Dr. Bright we did not proceed with procuring any supplies. Dr. Ruiz and you are removed from your position on april 22, by then had the department settled on a plan and procured the remdesivir . Dr. Bright no, they were still discussing presentations about potential donations of remdesivir at that time. Dr. Ruiz what you are describing as they gang that could not shoot straight but we are in the middle of the pandemic. Theres one drug the experts say could make a difference and has been shown to make a difference and the department cannot seem to figure out how to acquire it. You are warning about this about three months ago. If department had listened to you, could this have been avoided . Dr. Bright we should have had a plan for that drug. Dr. Ruiz it did not have to be this way. Dr. Bright right. Dr. Ruiz you were right about the danger of hydroxychloroquine, you are right about the benefit of remdesivir, you were right about n95 masks and other critical issues, but you were fired from your job while officials who botched the response and ignored your warnings stayed in theirs. Not only is this unfair to you but its dangerous to the American People. I yield back my time. The gentleman yields back. I would like to clarify something quickly, relative to your lead dr. Bright. Are you on accrued Vacation Time now . Yes. Would you share the exhibits once you remove personally identifiable information . Dr. Bright im having trouble understanding you through the mic. Im getting so comparable comfortable wearing a mask i forgot to have it on. Would you be willing to share the other exhibits once you remove personally identifiable information. Dr. Bright yes. We will make them available after the hearing today when we have had a chance to review it. Will they be made available to the minority as well as the majority . They will be made available to the entire committee. We had never shared anything with the majority that has not been shared to the minority, this is a bipartisan issue. Will exhibits be kept in comments among Committee Members . Not knowing whats in the emails and im wondering if theres any information in there that might be deemed to be degrading, would that be kept in confidence among the Committee Members . As opposed to being released to the public . We will follow the rules. Thank you. I have the pleasure of recognizing the only pharmacist in the United States congress, mr. Carter. Mr. Carter thank you for being here. Before, let me extend my condolences to those 80,000 plus who have lost their lives and their families as a result of this, and a shout out to our Health Care Professionals and are other essential workers who have put their own health in danger in order to provide services to our citizens. Dr. Bright, its my understanding that in 2017 barda funded a project with five Research Associates of a company to develop sanitizers, but according to recent reports by the Washington Post, none of these next generation respirators are available for us, why is that . Do you have any idea . Dr. Bright are you talking about the ventilators that we have developed . Mr. Carter im talking about those that were developed, the respirators that were developed and could be sanitized and reused during Public Health emergencies. Its my understanding that was contracted and that project was scrapped. Dr. Bright so im not familiar with the project to resanitize respirators. Mr. Carter fair enough if youre not familiar with it. We have had a lot of discussion about hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine, im confused because its my understanding that this is what barda, and if you want to clarify something here. It is my understanding that that is the role of barda, the mission, to look at things like this. When we come in congress, appropriate and allocate money to go towards this, barda is supposed to be looking at things that could possibly happen. Such as hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine. Early on it appeared that you embraced that and you were in favor of looking at that and im wondering, because of this pandemic and we did not have any vaccine or any kind of agreedupon treatment, we should be testing and thats what we are appropriating that money for, would you agree, that thats what we are trying to do, to look at what could possibly work and work with the to try to encourage them to come up with those kinds of solutions . Dr. Bright absolutely, we should look at all options and evaluate the potential risk and safety and benefit of those in the context of a randomized controlled Clinical Study and in the context of an emergency we should move and get that as quickly as possible. We should not proceed recklessly without that Clinical Data on potential adverse events in an emergency. Mr. Carter you are saying we should not proceed adversely, are you referring to hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine . Dr. Bright we were promoting the standing up of randomized controlled clinical studies at the nih with hydroxychloroquine. I worked with the company to even ask if they would donate drugs to the nih to be used in the context of a randomized controlled Clinical Study. That is what barda would do. Mr. Carter and you worked with the fda to get an emergency use for hydroxychloroquine. Is that correct . And it was approved. Dr. Bright that was in the context of the director we received to have extended access protocol. Mr. Carter you are saying you were instructed to do it anywhere against your will . Dr. Bright we were instructed to put in place expanded access protocol, in the context of an americans accessing this drug and not being under the close supervision of a physician. The scientist said fda, nih, cdc, and barda worked together to change that directed to the context of emergency use authorization with guardrails, so patients would be under the close supervision of a physician. Mr. Carter understood. And initially appeared encouraged by what could possibly be a result of the effect of hydroxychloroquine. When did that change . When did you sour on the use of hydroxychloroquine . Dr. Bright i believe we have seen many drugs that could have benefit, some of the more interesting things weve never heard of. Mr. Carter but my question is when did you sour on it . Dr. Bright when it was determined that it should be made available to americans outside of the context of a close physician who supervises. I supported a randomized controlled Clinical Study at the nih. When i learned that there was a directive to make it more broadly available and not under supervision of a physician mr. Carter when did that directive go out . Dr. Bright march 23. Mr. Carter thats when you decided thats not what we should do, and we should not be looking at hydroxychloroquine at all. Dr. Bright i did not think it was the proper or safe way to evaluate that drug in the context of this outbreak. I believe it should only be done under close supervision of physicians. Following a week later saying nor the eua and push this into the retail pharmacies in new york and new jersey. That is my became more concerned. Mr. Carter who put that directive out. The gentlemans time has expired. But you can answer. Dr. Bright which directive . Mr. Carter that it should be put to the public without physicians . Dr. Bright an email string that had a number of individuals on it, i believe it first came from the assistant secretary of health who indicated the white house was asking for that drug to be more broadly used. Mr. Carter was it because the president was encouraged by the use of this drug that she became discouraged . Dr. Bright nothing to do with politics, i wanted to make sure that americans were aware of the risk of this drug and that it was only available specifically. The gentlemans time has expired by 1. 5 minutes. You can finish her answer dr. Your answer dr. Bright, then we are moving to the next member. Dr. Bright it has been used safely for malaria for a number of years, we didnt have a database. Mr. Carter its being used in the same dosage. Gentlemen, please. I know that im overly generous with both sides of the aisle, but i think we need to move on. Two minutes of extra time his is two minutes of extra time and im not going to ask that it be shared over here. The gentlemans time is expired. Its a pleasure to recognize the gentlewoman from michigan, miss dingle for her time. Thank you madam chair, thank you to dr. Bright also for being here. You are doing a great service. I think we are here today because covid is real. I share the sentiments of many of my republican colleagues that have expressed the thanks to the front line workers, asking questions. I want to look at the last few months. Covid is real in my state. Michigan is the 10th largest state in the country, and we were third in the number of cases for weeks. We were third and we remained there until this week and the number of deaths. We have managed to move to fourth place two days ago, which is not a number anyone wants to be. My family alone, a cousin woke up with a 104 temperature and was dead that afternoon. There are people still dying every single day. I have lost someone, on sunday and monday, a brother lost. And then we hear scientific experts, yourself, dr. Fauci, and other scientists saying to us that if we do not listen to them we could begin to see a return. You call it a dark point. I call it i dont want to see more spikes or to see anyone else die. Im losing too many friends that i know, and people across the country are. I want to focus on an area thats not your area of expertise, but it is mine. Car safety. We expect cars to be safe. We specked Car Manufacturers to be responsible in making sure defective cars are not sold. If they fail in that responsibility, we hold them accountable. If an engineer and a car company realized a model had serious defects and warned her management about that, we would all think she had done her job responsibly. If management ignored her, and our Committee Found out, i will bet you right now we would be having hearings. If americans died driving those cars, the companies would be sued, they would be charged with criminal negligence. In fact, for my time, this committee investigated airbag defects and vehicle safety. The subcommittees Ranking Member, dr. Burgess said there is no room for going slow when it comes to safety. And certainly deception cannot and will not be tolerated. Dr. Burgess was right then. All carmakers have to be accountable. What im concerned about is that we are not applying the same standards to coronavirus. I want to learn from what happened so we keep that dark winter that you are talking about from happening. It seems to be dr. Bright that you acted the same way the auto engineer i mentioned should act area you identified Serious Problems and suggested fixes when it came to diagnostics, the n95 masks, other equipment, and medicines, is that right . Dr. Bright thats true. And congresswoman we still have those challenges. Mr. Dingell do you believe if your suggestions were implemented lives would have been saved and the severity of the pandemic might have been lessened . Dr. Bright i believe lives would have been saved if we had proper medical equipment for healthcare workers. Mr. Dingell so people died because you were not listened to. Dr. Bright people died because they did not have appropriate protective equipment to save their lives. Mr. Dingell the problems are not limited to just ignoring your advice. The American People are confused, given mixed signals, and frankly, some days deceived. Let me give you an example. There was a visit to the cdc on march 6, the administration said anybody who wants a test will get a test. Was that true then . Dr. Bright there are still not enough tests. Mr. Dingell so even this week, as we are being told anybody who wants a test can have a test, is that true in the United States of america . Dr. Bright no. Mr. Dingell in fact all the experts say we are doing only a small fraction of the tests we need to do to reopen safely. I am running out of time so let me ask you about vaccines. We are told by the white house that we have heard very soon, a matter of months for that vaccine to be developed. This is your area of expertise, you are a top immunologist in the world, was there any scientific basis to suggest in march that we would have a vaccine in the next few months . Dr. Bright theres a lot of optimism and hope, but that doesnt make a vaccine. Theres a lot of work that needs to be done. Mr. Dingell will we be able to vaccinate people in the next few months . Dr. Bright its very unlikely. Mr. Dingell thank you. The gentleman yields back. My understanding is that the minority is reserving. So with pleasure i recognize the gentleman from New Hampshire, ms. Kuster. Ms. Kuster thank you for being with us today, i want to thank you for your courage, for helping us to do our job to protect the American People. I want to start by restating what i said in a hearing on february 26 with secretary azar. The key to the Public Health crisis is trust and credibility. I urged the secretary to provide clear and credible updates from this administration to the public. But your whistleblower complaint and testimony today unveiled unheeded warnings about personal protective equipment, testing supplies, and vaccine supplies. Over the past several months i have held countless conversations with doctors and nurses and hospitals and Community Health centers and our republican governor and every other person in New Hampshire trying to get access to personal protective equipment to protect our frontline workers, to protect our grocery clerks. We have been trying to get testing supplies, we were told that because we were not a hotspot, we were on our own. And we had to turn to entrepreneurs, thank god they exist, and thank you to them for flying to china and bringing us the equipment we need that we should and could have had distributed have we planned ahead. These conversations have informed my roadmap to recovery on how to safely reopen our economy, and the key to those efforts is adequate testing, Contact Tracing, supported isolation and Vaccine Development. Your specialty. I want to focus on your role as the director of barda and Vaccine Development and distribution. On page 28 and 29 of your addendum to your complaint it states that barda estimated that between 600 and 50 million and 850 million needles and syringes would be needed for a vaccine to be administered in the United States. For everybody to be safe. Your team also estimates it could take up to two years to manufacture these vaccine delivery supplies. To your knowledge dr. Bright, at this time, has the administration placed any orders to prepare for how a vaccine will be delivered when one becomes available to every american . Dr. Bright i learned they placed an order for syringe is on may 1, and another order was placed today. Ms. Kuster were the amounts adequate . Dr. Bright 320 million needles and syringes. Ms. Kuster could you describe the situation if every american does not have access to the vaccine due to a supply shortage . Dr. Bright that situation would be catastrophic. The decisions have not been made yet on who to vaccinate first and how to identify those individuals. And how to stretch those limited supplies appropriately. Its important to remember that its not just the United States. There is a limited supply when i said two to 2. 5 years, that was assuming there would not be global competition for those limited supplies. Those are not made in the United States, some of them. Ms. Kuster did a lack of preparation make us more vulnerable to future spikes. Dr. Bright absolutely. Ms. Kuster two we have enough supplies to distribute the flu vaccine next winter and the coronavirus . Dr. Bright its good be extremely challenging. Ms. Kuster do we know the interactions of the fullfledged flu season in combination with covid19 . Dr. Bright we havent seen it yet, luckily in spring the flu ones down, thats when covid19 emerged. Ms. Kuster without adequate supplies to vaccinate all americans, does this slow down the goal of fully reopening our economy and getting back to the normal that every american wants . Dr. Bright it certainly brings significant consideration that must be taken into consideration before reopening. We need to make sure that not only the guidelines are cleared to each individual, and that each individual follows those guidelines, otherwise it with a solid risk. Ms. Kuster and i know you are not political, and certainly we are all trying to not be political. Im very proud in our state that our delegation and our governor are working so well together. Dr. Bright, does this virus give a damn whether a patient is republican or democrat. Dr. Bright no, i just want to infect people. Unfortunately, a lot of people get sick and many die. Ms. Kuster thank you, im grateful, not just for your knowledge, but for you humility and service to our country. I yield back. The gentlewoman yields back. A pleasure to call on the gentlewoman from illinois, ms. Kelly, for her five minutes of questions. Ms. Kelly thank you for being here. I am deeply concerned im deeply concerned by the described time and time again, some communities are forced to do without the debt to make do without the services they need. You have identified multiple situations that the United States has faced a shortage of supplies needed to respond to covid19, from masks, test swabs, and other testing material. And potentially delivering a supply. During covid19 we have seen some paying significantly more because they are on their own, to procure those medical supplies. Not every state or locality can afford to do this. Knowing what we know about how scarce resources are procured and distributed. What impacts will happen to lower income communities . Dr. Bright unfortunately and increases the concern in communities that are not part of the mainstream, or those with lower socioeconomic status. It has a significant chance of increasing the risk in those communities. Ms. Kelly how have you seen the devastation in this disease. Dr. Bright we dont have the information to understand why they have been hit so hard. We dont know why Health Status or access to health care or Immunization Status or healthcare status, we are learning a lot about that. But its important to think about when we have diagnostic tests, and other things available, that they are available to everyone. And many of these tests are very expensive, or in rare supplies. We need to make sure we are making the available tests that are not just accurate, but lowcost, so everyone can access a test. Ms. Kelly did you urge hhs leadership or the administration to consider preparedness outreach or targeted resources for these populations . Or are you aware of any hhs Administration Actions to target resources and outreach to vulnerable groups . Dr. Bright i have had some conversations, there have been some conversations i should say that focus on groups that are harder to reach and with a different socioeconomic status. Im not sure theres a plan in place just yet to make sure, thats more of a conversation. Ms. Kelly it doesnt sound like there is. You recommend having a National Standard and having equitable distribution of equipment and supplies. Will this help to ensure that every community can access the quitman 10 supplies they need . Dr. Bright that is whats needed. Ms. Kelly will this help to address the inequities that we are seeing and the impact of covid19 on communities of color . Dr. Bright absolutely. Ms. Kelly and do you feel in the last bill that we made sure that there was paths in the bill with better data as far as race and not just two dies but who was hospitalized and so on and so forth. We are hoping that the data will inform policy, do you feel that will help . Dr. Bright i think its important and a wise move. Ms. Kelly we are supposed to get her report, 21 days from when the president signed the bill, 30 days and then 180 days. Dr. Bright im not aware of those guidelines it comes from a different area. But i think oversight is important. Ms. Kelly and you have been sitting in that seat for a while, is there anything we have not asked you that you want to say . Dr. Bright its an important question and ive thought a lot about it. The highlight of things i talked about in my Opening Statement is that we need transparency and american needs to know the truth. This is a devastating pandemic, not just for health but our society, economy, jobs, livelihood. If we dont take seriously the call for action to put specific things in place, a coordinated National Plan for testing in response, and equitable distribution is limited to supplies and a ramp up and preparing for what will be a devastating fall if we dont have the right supplies in place or Raw Materials, then the virus will overcome us in a significant way. We have limited time, we have the ability to do it in the greatest Scientific Minds in our country to do it. We need to listen to them and put the plan in place and everyone gets busy stopping the virus. Ms. Kelly i have had three people in my family with this and i have lost my uncle maybe 10 days ago now from the virus. Thank you. And thank you for your patience. The gentlewoman yields back. The minority reserves . Then we go to the gentlewoman from california, ms. Barragan. Thank you. One striking aspect of your account and your complaint of the office of special counsel is the contrast between the public updates by the president and secretary azar on covid19 versus the analysis you and other experts were providing. I would like to explore this disconnect, and ultimately that the administration has shared information that was misleading. We need to do this to better understand what has happened and how we can ensure that the Administration Provides accurate and constructive information going forward. Dr. Bright, you had learned of the threats by early january, is that correct . Dr. Bright yes. Ms. Barragan according to your complaint it was clear to you almost immediately that the virus was highly contagious, spreading rapidly, and could have a high mortality rate. Is that correct . Dr. Bright we were learning that from the outbreak in china at the time. Ms. Barragan each day we learn more it was more concerning. Ms. Barragan and your view is confirmed by the World Health Organization in a january call to agencies including hhs. In january you pressed leadership about the urgent need to devote increased resources to address the outbreak. On january 23 you reached the secretary directly, that funding, personnel, and clinical specimens were critically necessary to Begin Development of lifesaving medicine needed in the likely event that the virus has spread beyond southeast asia. Yet, on january 24 in a tweet regarding the virus, the president assured us that it will all work out well. And on january between ninth and secretary reportedly told the president that the epidemic was under control. And the president echoed that comment publicly the following day. This disconnect between the analysis of Public Health experts and the public statements by the Administration Leaders continued through february. Let me give you more examples. In early february you continued to raise the alarm bell within hhs about the imminent mask shortages and the lack of preparations for the wave of infections that you saw coming. Thank you for doing that. Yet in public remarks on february the 10th President Trump stated it looks like by april, in theory, when it gets warmer, it miraculously goes away. And he added i think this will work out good. We only have 11 cases and they are Getting Better. You said that experts knew that the number of respirator masks needed to protect Health Care Workers and other americans in a pandemic was close to 3. 5 billion. Yet in testimony on for bureau 25th, secretary azar said they would only need 300 million respirators. Thats an order of magnitude so much less than what was stated. Through february you continued your warnings. I would say her hair was on fire about the dangers that millions of americans faced. But President Trump characterized the number of cases this way, we have 15 people, and when a couple of days it will be down to close to zero. Thats a pretty good job youve done. By march 10, there were over 1000 diagnosed covid19 cases in the United States. Over 30 debts had been attributed to the virus in this country. Yet the president that day told the country it will go away, just stay calm. It will go away. He could not have been more wrong. Today we have over 1. 4 million cases. Dr. Bright, what impact do you believe that statements by the Administration Leaders downplaying the covid19 crisis had to mount an Effective Response by our Health Care System to the covid19 virus . Dr. Bright i believe americans need to be told the truth. That the best scientific guidance and advice was not being conveyed to the American Public during that time. I believe by not telling america truth, or being fully transparent regardless of where the information was coming from, people were not as prepared as they could have been and should have been. We did not forewarn people. We did not train people, we did not educate them on social distancing and wearing a mask as we should have in january and february. All of those Educational Opportunities for the American Public could have had an impact on slowing the outbreak and saving more lives. Ms. Barragan thank you. And thank you for sharing your perspective today. I hope that your courage in coming forward helps our country forge a better path in a disastrous course chartered by this administration. I yield back. The gentlewoman yields back. Pleasure to welcome the gentlewoman from delaware. Thank you so much for your testimony but also for your courage today. As you can hear from our colleagues, there is not a person in this country has not been personally touched by covid19. Your statement that we need to be told the truth is probably the most important statement we have heard all day. Cannot. That not it, we courage toor your testify today. I want to say that my focus is on three things. Number one, what have we learned . , what do we have to do now and what can we do to mitigate the risk . Has beenar that there a failure on the part of the Administration Team scientific comprehensiveke is and urgent action to respond to covid19. One of the most pressing needs is a need for a National Testing strategy. You mentioned the need for such a strategy, available to everyone that needs done. With the representative from texas wrote a letter to the democratic and Republican House and we impressed upon them the need for outlining a robust testing plan. Rent Testing Capacity Health Care Experts say we are woefully short of the estimated 30 million tests per week that we need to get america back to and as safely as possible mitigate a second wave of covid19. Thebright, what are immediate steps that we need to be taking to ramp up Testing Capacity now and through the fall . What targets should they be held accountable for . Dr. Bright what is interesting about the testing story that gets lost in the narrative is the confusion about different types of tests. Test and anantigen Antibody Test that looks at your antibodies. Here is a lot of confusion to determine which of those tests is most urgent. What does it tell americans . What does it tell employers and schools about the potential for an individual who has a positive or negative on that test . There is a lot of confusion about these tests. We should determine the type of test and how that test would be used effectively. Make sure that we have enough of those tests and that they are in the right place. There is a lot of confusion and they need leadership to distinguish those challenges and clarify that for the American Public. Many different tests, they tell you many different things. Why do you think our nation testingggled with capacity . Where their contingency plans in place . Dr. Bright part of the struggle is waiting too late. Conversations, another part of the challenge is, we have allowed many of these to be assured. We can ramp up and bring innovation, but if the supply , thatis offshore significantly impairs our ability ramp up. Again, i want to thank you for your courage to be here now. Many of us are challenged to make sure that our country is , and it really i have never seen anything like this. Back, ands us to look at the same time to look forward to make sure that we have what we need as a country. Gentlewoman yields back. It is a pleasure to recognize the gentleman from illinois for his five minutes of questions. Do you have your microphone on . Rush i have it on now. It is so good to see you. I have been watching you this morning and it amazes me about your courage and your insight and your commitment i am so delighted to be in the same room with you. Your contributions are impressive and your reports of the scientific process was pushed aside for shortterm political points is extremely troublesome to me. And the American Public, im sure. I am absolutely convinced that both you and the chinese doctor, the doctor who first raised the alarm over the coronavirus in wuhan, china, you two will be remembered as two titans of this pandemic. You were the path that is right, rather than the path that was easy. I commend you for it. It has been widely reported that president Obamas White House National Security council left the administration a detailed, very thorough document on how to proceed through a pandemic. Do you have any input in that playbook . Dr. Bright yes sir, i did. And number of agencies had input. Rep. Rush as far as you know, and any of those recommendations have any of those recommendations been followed . Dr. Bright i believe some of those principles have been reviewed and considered. I think the playbook has changed. Rep. Rush i think it is critically important that we focus on the path forward. While we must learn from the fact, our response has to be forward thinking, forward moving, and i am the sponsor of a bipartisan covid19 trace act. I have been working on development of comprehensive strategy for mobile testing and doortodoor tracing. My legislation empowers Community Groups to hire, train, and pay workers to engage in testing and Contact Tracing. It prioritizes hotspots and medically underserved areas, as well as companies who hire locally. As such, i was interested in your views on a National Testing and tracing strategy. In your testimony you said, the viruses out there, its everywhere. We need to be able to find it, to isolate it, and stop it from affecting more people. I could not agree with you more. I believe that it is a question that is relevant today. I would like to hear what you believe should be our National Strategy for testing and tracing. Dr. Bright i think it is important. You are spot on that we need to have a strategy that everyone follows, the same strategies to test for the viruses, who is infected with this virus. Then we have to isolate that person and quarantine them so they dont infect others. We rapidly need to trace their contacts. And be able to test those individuals. If they have been infected as well, we need to be able to isolate those. Through a coordinated effort across the country, we can be able to identify, give those people proper treatment and slow the spread of this virus. That has to be in a coordinated way. We have to have the right tests and enough of those tests. It is not something we do once and we are done. It is something we have to continually do. It is not just we have to have one test for every person in america, we need multiple tests in the right types of test. We need the right professionals who know how to use those tests, to trace those contacts, and isolate the virus. Rep. Rush i think you so very much and thank you for being here and letting the American People know what is going on. Madam chair, i yield back the balance of my time. The gentleman yields back. There is no request you are on speakers, ok. It is a pleasure to recognize the gentleman from arizona, mr. Ohalloran, who is a member of the energy and Commerce Committee. According to our rules we can wave onto a subcommittee, so we welcome you this afternoon and recognize you for five minutes of questions. Put your microphone on. Thank you madam chair. Your insight, your knowledge, and your caring for the American People. You have touched on several concerns i share with my colleagues about how the United States has responded to covid19. We must address the Health Crisis headon. If you want to tackle the economic crisis that has overtaken our country. We are going to need a coordinated National Testing and Contact Tracing plan, spearheaded by the federal government to prevent states from competing with one another for resources and planning for hotspot attacks and other issues that will come up. This is the only way people will feel safe returning to work, eating at restaurants, enjoying arizonas public lands, and being out in public, and close to others. This flexibility is critical. You cant have that unless you have a coordinated process. In my district, the Navajo Nation has been going under this process. It is 170,000 people. The area is the size of west virginia. This fallacy that only urban areas are impacted is and that it can spread fast, 16 people died yesterday. In fact, on a per capita basis, this currently has more cases than any state in the country. Yet this hotspot is still not being addressed in the appropriate way. More resources are needed and they are needed now, and they were needed more than a month ago when we started trying to get this done. They continue to struggle to see the federal governments promise of payments in a timely manner. It came through, finally, what has to be timely in order to respond. This will bolster the Health System and provide people with water, food, and supplies during this time of crisis. Dr. Bright, what is the one thing that the federal government must do to ensure that hotspots like Navajo Nation or anywhere else in our country are successfully mitigated in a timely way . That this virus does not continue to spread and to bring back the citizens of our country to be able to understand that we will respond quickly with the necessary supplies . Dr. Bright congressman, that is a question. I believe we need to recognize that it is a hotspot and understand the per capita out rake of a number of infections in different areas and not treat every area of the same. The rural areas, the less dense areas are not the same as a dense city such as new york city. However, you can have just as significant of challenge in a rural area as you described. I think the first recognition is to get the data across the country, into the federal government so they can make the right prioritization decisions, allocation of those limited supplies and resources to areas such as yours. I dont think there is a full recognition yet of how to define the hotspots in a standardized way. We need to have scientists review this challenge and come up with an equitable distribution of those areas. Rep. Ohalloran thank you, doctor. I want to point out that this enemy goes much faster than one of our jet planes. Our fighters go fast, but this goes moving forward and how can the federal government address these now, within a quick period of time . They cannot get tests. And they have 400 cases out of 14,000 people. How can the federal government within aany quick period of time. They cannot get tests. And they have 400 cases out of 14,000 people. I mean, this is a critical issue, please. Dr. Bright i still think we need to recognize the importance of the different types of tests. They are essential for what we need to do to isolate the virus. We need to put all efforts into ramping up production of all supplies for those tests. We have found many times that we have ramped up now tests production, but we have not thought about the critical agents that accompany those tests. We havent thought about the swaps. We are asking diagnostic equipment that might run 100 test today to run 10,000 tests a day. There hasnt been a real thought through plan about how to maintain that equipment. That equipment now is failing in many places. As we ramp up capacity to test and we havent thought all the way through to rails and materials and maintenance, we can find ourselves a few days down the road not having the tests we thought we had. Again, this is where a coordinated strategy and plan for testing comes into place. Not just had to use the test, how to make sure we are sustaining that supply. How to make sure we have thought of every component, if it is a swab, if it is a buffer, if it is a lubricant for the instrument itself. Making sure all of those things are considered in that National Strategy so we dont ramp up one area and crash in another. Rep. Ohalloran thank you, doctor. Madam chair, i yield. Rep. Eshoo see no other members to speak. I went to close, dr. Bright. Youve been here for just shy of four hours of straight testimony. And my observation is the following. I think that you are the finest ambassador in our country were for scientists. Your encyclopedic knowledge, the depth and the breadth of it, i think that the American People have listened this morning, that you have given them confidence. You have also issued your warning. I pray and i sincerely mean that word i pray that we well Work Together successfully so that that window that is closing, we will optimize the time that we have while it is still open. You know, facts are really stubborn things. And sometimes it is uncomfortable to have to deal with the facts that we are facing. But we, the United States, still has more cases, more deaths by far than any other nation on earth. And by that definition, we have, in my view, a profound failure. You have given this committee roadmap today. And we all have been witnessed your integrity. Thank you for your service to our country. Thank you for your willingness to testify here today. Thank you for your courage, chas raised your lead pressure with all of the, what one contends with when you come i he become a highprofile witness. I think you should rest assured that youve made a difference today. On behalf of all of my colleagues, i think you and salute you, and thank you for your family being here as well. Thank you. Dr. Bright thank you. Rep. Eshoo yes . I was going to ask if i could be recognized . Rep. Eshoo how would be glad i would be glad to. Dr. Burgess, you are recognized. Rep. Burgess there are a number of things we need to look into, and i hope that we will. This crisis has been going on for several months. We had an hour tacked onto a Budget Hearing at the end of february, then this is the first glancing blow weve had against this crisis. I welcome the hearing today, i think it is important. I appreciate dr. Bright being here. I do think we need to look into the issue of testing. I simply do not understand how the cdc. So far behind the curve. I would like to know that. But i also feel like there has been, in Previous Administration there was an effort to really regulate what are known as Laboratory Developed test and move them away from regulated products to fdaregulated products. That really put us behind. The innovators have now stepped up, i am thankful that they have to break we shouldnt have excluded them in the first place, and we look back on this that is going to be one of the failings at the federal level. That is not a recent failing. That goes back to guidances and rules that were issued back in 20122014, as far as testing is concerned and the ancillary supplies. Our tests involve taking a salivary sample, that would be great. Spit into a cup, not have to deal with obnoxious swabs going down your throat. I suspect those cops are probably in greater supply and more delay available. Then, dr. Bright, you will remember i had an interaction with you in march. Ive had people pounding on the door with all kinds of ideas. I have had people want to turn their furniture shop into a ppe manufacturing shop. They have issues getting through federal agencies. I have a man who has a breathalyzer test for covid19. I dont know whether it works. If it does, it is intriguing. A mobile unit about the size of a breadbox you can take from place to place, simply blow into a tube i would have to have more straws, but that could be dealt with. There are some innovative things on the horizon. The vaccine worries me too, because i recognize this is analysis there are illnesses for which we have never found a vaccine. H1n1, i recognize that is different. That happened in about eight months if i recall correctly. The outbreak happened at spring break, we didnt know if we were going to be able to open schools in september. The vaccine was available mid september, early october depending on the part of the country you are in. That gives me hope that perhaps there is going to be light at the end of this tunnel in the form of a vaccine. But i do welcome the hearing today, i look forward to a number of additional hearings. The Ranking Member of the full committee was incorrect was correct to invoke rule 11. We will keep that as an option going forward. I think our witnesses and i yield back. Rep. Eshoo the gentleman yields back. Thank you again, dr. Bright. The first panel has completed testimony and i just ask the staff to prepare the table for our next witness and then we will begin in just a few minutes. Federal reserve chairman Jerome Powell and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin testify remotely before the Senate Banking committee about the 2 trillion cares act which passed in march as part of the governments Coronavirus Response. Live coverage begins tuesday at 10 a. M. Eastern on cspan, cspan. Org, or you can listen live on the free cspan radio app app. Amash,congressman justin a former republican now libertarian, who had been considering a president ial bid posted this in a series of tweets. He writes, after much reflection, i have included circumstances do not let themselves to my success as a candidate for president this year, and therefore, i will not be a candidate. Was as on to say, this difficult decision for me, especially havent seen grassroots supporters put so much effort into this campaign. It has been humbling and awesome. Governor Asa Hutchinson says Law Enforcement was investigating a assistancee Pandemic Assistance Program website. He was joined by other state officials who