Ex-NYC COVID czar details in secret recording how to use media to ‘spin’ monkeypox drug stories
New York City’s disgraced former COVID czar, Dr. Jay Varma, has been caught seemingly admitting that he used the media to “spin stories” about a monkeypox drug manufactured by his former employer, SIGA Technologies Inc.
The comments were revealed in a highly edited trailer for part two of a series of secretly recorded conversations with a so-called undercover operative from conservative podcaster Steven Crowder’s “Mug Club.”
The edited clips of Varma, released Wednesday, were reportedly filmed on a hidden camera and were recorded between July 27 and Aug. 14 in New York.
The Post has not reviewed the full, unedited recordings.
In the latest video, Varma — who previously served as senior health adviser to then-Mayor Bill de Blasio and was tasked with running the Big Apple’s pandemic response — described the Food and Drug Administration approval process while discussing SIGA Technologies’ “tecovirimat,” or “TPOXX” drug.
“That’s why spinning it in the media is helpful. We want the FDA to approve our drugs, specifically for monkeypox, and right now it’s only considered experimental and they won’t approve it,” he said.
In the US, TPOXX is not approved by the FDA for the treatment of Mpox but can be used to treat patients as part of a clinical trial known as the Study of Tecovirimat for Human Mpox Virus (STOMP), according to SIGA Technologies.
The company’s website added that the STOMP trial is being conducted to evaluate the efficacy of TPOXX for the treatment of Mpox.
Varma then griped in the video filmed on Aug. 14 that his then-employer is “stuck with our drug” but people aren’t going to be “as confident in it because the data doesn’t look as strong as it should.”
“Sometimes you do a study, and this f—ing … nothing works at all, or people get really sick from it,” he said in the covert recording.
“The problem is, if you do another study, it’ll take a year or two to do it, because you have to get ethics approval, you gotta get money, you gotta get patients to come in.”
In the videos, Varma then gloated about how he “knows the reporters well,” and referenced a September interview with the New York Times on Mpox, which touted TPOXX as a drug used to treat Mpox infection.
Varma also described the World Health Organization’s “emergency authorization” process before explaining how he wants the media to report on TPOXX.
“So basically what we’re trying to get the media to say is, ‘Oh, the drug didn’t work because it was designed the wrong way. So they’re going to do another study, and it’ll probably work’ and in the meantime, people just prescribe it as an emergency drug. That’s what we want the story to be,” he said in the edited clip.
Varma added that the risk of Mpox spreading in the US is “very low” and is “almost certainly going to stay among gay men.”
“[Mpox] basically got into the sexual networks of gay men … and a lot of gay men have tons and tons of sexual partners and often don’t use condoms, so as a result, it’s spread more easily,” said the doctor, who previously boasted about hosting 10-person sex parties during the pandemic.
The identity of the woman Varma was speaking to — or where he met up with her — wasn’t clear. The nature of their relationship also wasn’t clear.
Varma had been working as the executive vice president and chief medical officer for SIGA before he was fired without cause this week.
It’s unclear whom he reported to at the company at the time the videos were recorded and whether his comments in the footage led to his dismissal.
Varma has maintained that the first release of the covert videos — in which he admitted his wild partying during the pandemic — were “taken out of context” and declined to comment on the second release.
In September last year, SIGA touted Varma as an “invaluable asset” to the company as it “worked to support the global response to the Mpox outbreak.”
The Post has contacted SIGA Technologies for comment.
