Bolsonaro backs down and cancels chloroquine’s critical doctor medal

President Jair Bolsonaro (no party) stepped back and withdrawn this Friday (5) awards from the National Order of Scientific Merit given to two doctors who have already been targeted by federal government supporters.

In a decree published in an extra edition of the Diário Oficial da União, Bolsonaro annulled the admission in the class of “comendador” for knowledge about health sciences of Marcus Vinícius Guimarães Lacerda, a researcher at Fiocruz, and Adele Schwartz Benzaken, director of Fiocruz Amazônia.

Lacerda coordinated a study in Amazonas that, in April 2020, saw no benefit in the use of high doses of chloroquine in Covid-19’s critically ill patients. He became the target of death threats and personal insults on social media from supporters of the president.

Benzaken, on the other hand, was fired in January 2019, at the beginning of Bolsonaro’s administration, from the direction of the Ministry of Health department that drew up policies for the prevention, surveillance and control of sexually transmitted infections. Leaving office would be related to a booklet focused on the health of trans men.

Despite having been the target of the wrath of supporters in the Pocket, the doctors had received the decoration by decree published on Thursday (4) and signed by the president. In this text, Bolsonaro himself received a decoration in the Grand-Cross class.

The president kept all the other decorations given by this decree to researchers, entities and members of the government.

The Brazilian Academy of Sciences criticized the annulment of Lacerda and Benzaken for the Order. In a statement, the organization states that the attitude “is another attack on science, innovation and the country’s intelligence” and claimed for the return of the appointments of scientists.

Bolsonaro received the honor, however, as the rules on the National Order of Scientific Merit establish that the President of the Republic, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, among other names, will be awarded in the “Grã-Cruz” class.

The president bet on the distribution of ineffective drugs as the government’s response to Covid-19. He and his supporters have already criticized the study conducted by Lacerda.

In the midst of the collapse of the health system in Manaus, the president even said that it was necessary to intervene in the region because “early treatment” against Covid-19 was not being carried out.