Mask skeptic lawmaker takes on side gig overseeing drug company trial

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/17/andy-harris-coronavirus-neurorx-board-417329

Rep. Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican and medical doctor, has broken with the scientific mainstream during the coronavirus pandemic — decrying stay-at-home orders and warning of a “cult of masks.”

Now the five-term congressman has joined the hunt for coronavirus treatments with an unpaid side gig overseeing a drug company trial. Harris is one of three members of the data and safety monitoring board for the trial run by NeuroRx, a small Delaware company whose CEO and founder has longstanding ties to the congressman.

The members of the board are responsible for monitoring safety and efficacy data from the ongoing trial, which started in May, and have the power to end the study if problems arise. The drug in question, aviptadil, was created in 1970 to treat lung inflammation, but never reached the market. NeuroRx is now investigating whether it can help Covid-19 patients with acute lung failure.

Harris’s role is an unusual one: Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb told POLITICO that he’d never heard of a sitting member of Congress serving on a data monitoring committee for any drug. The arrangement doesn’t appear to run afoul of House ethics rules because Harris is not being paid by NeuroRx and does not own a stake in the company. But several bioethicists questioned his lack of experience in evaluating data from drug trials, and said that his close ties to NeuroRx CEO Jonathan Javitt could complicate matters if problems arose with the company’s study.

*snip*

[crickets]

1. Oh. This will work out well. nt