On Saturday, The Washington Post reported that Michael Bowen, a manufacturer in Fort Worth, Texas, offered to produce millions of N95 masks for the federal government in January — but a key official expressed little interest in the proposal.
"Bowen’s medical supply company, Prestige Ameritech, could ramp up production to make an additional 1.7 million N95 masks a week. He viewed the shrinking domestic production of medical masks as a national security issue, though, and he wanted to give the federal government first dibs," reported Aaron Davis. "'We still have four like-new N95 manufacturing lines,' Bowen wrote that day in an email to top administrators in the Department of Health and Human Services. 'Reactivating these machines would be very difficult and very expensive but could be achieved in a dire situation.'"
"But communications over several days with senior agency officials — including Robert Kadlec, the assistant secretary for preparedness and emergency response — left Bowen with the clear impression that there was little immediate interest in his offer," continued the report. Laura Wolf, director of the agency’s Division of Critical Infrastructure Protection, wrote back, “I don’t believe we as an government are anywhere near answering those questions for you yet.”
"In the end, the government did not take Bowen up on his offer," said the report. "Even today, production lines that could be making more than 7 million masks a month sit dormant."
This revelation came about from papers turned over by whistleblower Dr. Rick Bright, who worked on a high-level federal vaccine team before being reassigned — which he maintains was retaliation for expressing doubt about President Donald Trump's promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a miracle treatment for coronavirus.
"Emails show Bright pressed Kadlec and other agency leaders on the issue of mask shortages — and Bowen’s proposal specifically — to no avail," said the report. "On Jan. 26, Bright wrote to a deputy that Bowen’s warnings 'seem to be falling on deaf ears.' That day, Bowen sent Bright a more direct warning. 'U.S. mask supply is at imminent risk,' he wrote. 'Rick, I think we’re in deep s---,' he wrote a day later."
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