Dr. Rick Bright, the vaccine expert-turned-whistleblower who testified before Congress earlier this year, would not give President Donald Trump's Operation Warp Speed full credit Tuesday for COVID-19 vaccines that are heading for approval, including those announced in recent days from Pfizer and Moderna that use mRNA technology.
"I really am excited to see the progress from messenger mRNA vaccines," Bright, now a member of Joe Biden's coronavirus task force, said on ABC News' "Good Morning America."
He explained that the investments started initially back in 2013 with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and again in 2016 for the fight against the Zika virus.
"It was a new technology we have invested in and built the foundation, so when we needed them now for the crisis they were ready to run," said Bright. "I'm really encouraged that the [President Barack] Obama investment in these new technologies is paying out now to have them ready faster than we've ever seen."
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said Monday that work on the technology has been going on for at least 10 years, "with a lot of investment and focus on science."
Bright's comments come after Trump said on Twitter Monday that the vaccines had come under "my watch."
Earlier this year, Bright, a key vaccine expert, was removed from his job as director of Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and reassigned to the National Institutes of Health after he disagreed with the president's request to promote access to an unproven drug as a treatment for the virus.
Meanwhile, he said Tuesday that it's important to understand that there is a great deal of work ahead for distributing the vaccines, and he's concerned about the lack of coordination between Trump's administration and Biden's.
"There's a lot of coordination that goes into putting those vaccines into a vial and shipping those across the country, getting those in the hands of doctors and nurses to administer them and tracking them to make sure the person that got the first dose of one vaccine gets the second dose of the same vaccine at the right time schedule," said Bright.
He said he agrees with Biden that "lives are at stake," and if the opportunity is missed to coordinate efforts, "we could experience hiccups or delays that really we don't need to see. Americans deserve a smooth transition so we can make sure to save their lives."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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