Larry Ellison, co-founder and executive chairman of Oracle Corp., speaks during the Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco on Oct. 22, 2018.
Bloomberg
A top federal vaccine expert who was ousted from his post this week felt pressured to rush out expanded access to a potential treatment for coronavirus patients after President Donald Trump discussed the drug with Larry Ellison, chairman of tech giant Oracle, NBC News reported Thursday.
The report comes a day after the expert, Rick Bright, went public with a bombshell statement saying he was removed from leading a federal agency heavily involved in coronavirus response efforts after he “resisted efforts to fund potentially dangerous drugs promoted by those with political connections.”
And it comes on the same day that a House committee chairman called for an investigation into Bright’s forced transfer from his post as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, a unit of the U.S. Health…