Former White House Coronavirus Task Force adviser Deborah Birx named CEO of pharmaceutical company, has been active in private sector since leaving government positions



Deborah Birx – the former White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator under former President Donald Trump – has been named as the CEO of a pharmaceutical company.

In a July 11 press release, Armata Pharmaceuticals announced that Birx, 67, would be the new Chief Executive Officer of the biotechnology company.

Robin C. Kramer, Chair of Armata's Board of Directors, said, "On behalf of the Armata Board and leadership, I would like to welcome Dr. Birx to the team. As we continue to work to introduce novel phage therapeutics to combat serious bacterial infections, Deborah's expertise in immunology and infectious diseases together with her proven leadership skills will serve us well. I look forward to her contributions as CEO and a member of our Board."

Birx said of her new CEO position, "I am thrilled to join Armata at this pivotal time in the Company's development. I'm impressed with the scientific platform's quality and the team's commitment to introducing innovative treatment options for patients suffering from serious bacterial infections. I am excited about the recent advances and see multiple opportunities to accelerate the Company's progress and drive value creation. The recent investment enables the advancement of AP‐PA02 and AP‐SA02 in Phase 2 clinical trials."

Armata Pharmaceuticals is a self-described "clinical‐stage biotechnology company focused on the development of pathogen‐specific bacteriophage therapeutics for the treatment of antibiotic‐resistant and difficult‐to‐treat bacterial infections using its proprietary bacteriophage‐based technology."

The California-based pharmaceutical company said it is currently "developing and advancing a broad pipeline of natural and synthetic phage candidates, including clinical candidates for Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, and other pathogens."

Birx announced her retirement in December 2020 during an interview by saying, "I want the Biden administration to be successful. I've worked since 1980 in the federal government, first through the military, then through [the Department of Health and Human Services], and then detailed to the State Department and detailed here, where I hope I was helpful. I will be helpful in any role people think I can be helpful in, and then I will retire."

Birx left her position as White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator in January 2021, according to a LinkedIn profile.

The same month, she resigned from her position as the Coordinator of the United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS and U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy.

In March 2021, Birx became a Senior Fellow at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, which said: "Deborah L. Birx, M.D., has spent her career serving the United States, first as an Army Colonel and later, running some of the most high-profile and influential programs at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and U.S. Department of State."

In March 2021, Birx joined the board of directors at Innoviva – a self-described "diversified holding company with a portfolio of royalties that include respiratory assets partnered with Glaxo Group Limited (GSK), as well as a growing portfolio of innovative healthcare investments and assets in areas of significant unmet medical need."

Also in March 2021, Birx became a "Medical and Science Advisor" at ActivePure – a technology company with a self-described "commitment to creating the purest indoor space possible."

In September 2022, Birx joined the board of directors for Nanolive – a Swiss microscope company that claims to provide "breakthrough imaging and analysis solutions that accelerate research in growth industries such as drug discovery and cell therapy."

In October 2022, Birx was named a member of the Federal Advisory Board for Palantir – a software company specializing in data analytics and data integration. TechCrunch previously reported, "As of 2013, Palantir was used by at least 12 groups within the US Government including the CIA, DHS, NSA, FBI, the CDC, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, Special Operations Command, West Point, the Joint IED-defeat organization and Allies, the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children."

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As Republicans prepare to launch investigations, Fauci says he will retire before end of Biden's current term



Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the White House and leading spokesman for the government on the COVID-19 pandemic, says he will retire before the end of President Joe Biden's first term.

Fauci, 81, is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases, a position he has held since 1984. In an interview published Monday, he told Politico he is planning to step down after more than five decades of public service under seven presidents.

He announced his plan to retire shortly after congressional Republicans, emboldened by widespread expectations they will reclaim a majority in the House of Representatives after the election in November, have declared their intention to investigate his actions at NIAID leading up to and during the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans want to determine what role Fauci played in downplaying the lab-leak origins theory of the virus and whether his agency within the National Institute of Health funded controversial gain-of-function research.

Fauci became the face of the federal government's COVID-19 response after President Donald Trump appointed him to the White House coronavirus task force in 2020. He has served on both Trump and Biden's pandemic response teams, making regular appearances on cable news, talk shows, and podcasts to promote the government's recommendations on mask wearing and vaccination.

In these media appearances, Fauci has been a proponent of politically divisive lockdowns and mask and vaccine mandates. His critics have accused him of making contradictory statements — such as initially saying masks were useless before reversing his position — and shifting goal posts on when the country would reach herd immunity from COVID-19.

Fauci in turn has accused his critics of refusing to "follow the science." He has also strongly dismissed the hypothesis that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China — calling it a "conspiracy theory" — though international investigators have since determined the lab-leak theory is a plausible hypothesis for the origins of the coronavirus.

His reasons for downplaying the lab-leak theory would be the subject of congressional investigations should Republicans gain control of Congress. Emails unearthed by GOP lawmakers revealed that in early 2020, Fauci had conferred with scientists studying the emerging coronavirus who believed it was possible the virus was "engineered." Despite those private admissions, Fauci and other top health officials went on to publicly denounce the lab-leak theory.

Republicans have accused Fauci of a "cover up" — asserting that the NIAID director intentionally cast doubts on the lab-leak theory because his agency had funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology through awards to the non-profit group EcoHealth Alliance. EcoHealth has been accused of funding gain-of-function experiments at the Wuhan lab — risky research that involves artificially manipulating pathogens — which some have suggested could be a possible origin for the virus that causes COVID-19.

Fauci told Politico he is preparing for inquiries from Republicans challenging his record but that they aren't a factor in his plans for retirement.

“They’re going to try and come after me, anyway. I mean, probably less so if I’m not in the job,” he said, speaking from his NIH office in Bethesda, Maryland. “I don’t make that a consideration in my career decision.”

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Dr. Birx took family trip to Delaware vacation home, flouting her own coronavirus guidance



The day after Thanksgiving, Dr. Deborah Birx traveled to one of her vacation properties in Delaware. She was joined by three generations of her family from two households, openly flouting her own guidance she gave only weeks earlier.

Birx, her husband, daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren all visited a vacation property on Fenwick Island last month and shared a meal together, according to the Associated Press.

The family trip was a direct contradiction to the advice that Birx gave to Americans regarding Thanksgiving gatherings. On Nov. 20, Birx gave an interview to CNN, where she warned Americans to "be vigilant" and limit holiday celebrations to "your immediate household."

Dr. Deborah Birx: Limit indoor gatherings to "immediate households.""I don't like it to be any number... if you s… https://t.co/suZt17Br2v
— New Day (@New Day)1605879397.0

The coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force admitted that she went to one of her vacation homes, and her family shared a meal together.

"She insisted the purpose of the roughly 50-hour visit was to deal with the winterization of the property before a potential sale — something she says she previously hadn't had time to do because of her busy schedule," the AP reported.

"I did not go to Delaware for the purpose of celebrating Thanksgiving," Birx said in a statement.

Birx claimed that everyone who went on the family trip Delaware trip belongs to her "immediate household," despite the members living in two different homes.

Birx and her husband have a home in Washington. She also owns a home in Potomac, Maryland. That's where her elderly parents and her daughter's family live. Birx visits every so often.

Kathleen Flynn, whose brother is married to Birx's daughter, is the one who exposed the family trip. "She cavalierly violated her own guidance," Flynn said of Birx's hypocrisy.

Flynn said she went public with the information because she is concerned about her own parents. Flynn's mother, 77, regularly visits the Potomac house to provide child care, and then returns to her home near Baltimore, where she lives with her 92-year-old husband, who has health complications.

Three weeks ago, Birx lectured Americans for having Thanksgiving gatherings with family.

"We know people may have made mistakes over the Thanksgiving time period," Birx said. "If you're young and you gathered, you need to be tested about five to 10 days later. But you need to assume that you're infected and not go near your grandparents and aunts and others without a mask."

Birx also instructed families to "even mask indoors if they chose to gather during Thanksgiving and others went across the country or even into the next state."

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