‘Captain chloroquine’ leaves Health and receives a position at the Ministry of Labor

The doctor Mayra Pinheiro, known as “Captain Chloroquine”, left the leadership of the Ministry of Health and was appointed this Monday (14) to the position of Undersecretary of Federal Medical Expertise at the Ministry of Labor and Welfare.

Leadership of the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government wing that defends ineffective medicines for Covid-19, Mayra has held the position in Health of Secretary of Labor and Education Management since January 2019.

The doctor asked to be exonerated from Health because she plans to run for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies for Ceará. She joined the PL, the same legend as Bolsonaro.

Close to the president, Mayra is an expert doctor with a public examination. She must leave the government definitively until April, as required by the electoral calendar.

In 2018, affiliated with the PSDB, the doctor was in fourth position in the dispute for Ceará’s seat in the Senate. She also became a member of the New Party.

The doctor’s passage through Health was marked by actions to disseminate the use of ineffective medicines against the Covid-19 pandemic.

For this same reason, she received the nickname “Captain Chloroquine” by opponents of the government.

In 2020, she participated in the preparation of a folder document that recommended the prescription of drugs such as chloroquine from the first days of symptoms.

At the beginning of the following year, when the health system in Manaus was collapsing due to the lack of oxygen for Covid-19 patients, the doctor led a government task force to bring the same ineffective treatment to the capital of Amazonas.

She also promoted TrateCOV, an app that recommended prescribing “early treatment” even for patients with generic symptoms such as nausea.

The Senate Covid CPI suggested, in the final report, the indictment of Mayra for an epidemic resulting in death, malfeasance and crime against humanity.

as showed the leafMinister Marcelo Queiroga (Health) should take advantage of Mayra’s departure to change positions among his assistants.

The main idea is to remove Hélio Angotti, a doctor who defends the “Covid kit” and ally of Mayra, from the command of the Secretary of Science, Technology, Innovation and Strategic Inputs.

This is because the folder deals with the approval of guidelines and treatment protocols for the SUS. This year, Angotti rejected guidelines that contraindicated ineffective drugs for Covid-19, such as hydroxychloroquine.

These guidelines had been prepared by a group of experts formed at the request of Queiroga.

The secretary also led some of the attempts by the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) government to disseminate the “Covid kit” in the SUS, such as the idea of ​​inserting the medicines in the Popular Pharmacy program.

Queiroga’s plan is for the doctor to fill the vacancy left by Mayra.

Queiroga’s assistants say that Angotti’s fierce defense of the “Covid kit” has become a headache for the minister. The Senate Human Rights Commission summoned Queiroga and Angotti to explain the rejection of the guidelines.

Queiroga told colleagues that the doctor Sérgio Okane, current head of the Secretariat of Specialized Health Care, should take over the Angotti secretariat. This is the minister’s trusted name.

Okane’s body would be under the command of Maíra Botelho, now director of Specialized and Thematic Health Care.

In addition to evaluating SUS treatments, the Department of Science, Technology, Innovation and Strategic Inputs is seen as strategic in the government for dealing with the health industrial complex, coordinating partnerships between public and private laboratories, among other functions.

The guidelines on Covid-19 vetoed by Angotti would not have the power to prohibit doctors from using ineffective drugs, but they would represent a stain on Bolsonaro’s denialist banners.

This is because the federal government, through the Ministry of Health, would recognize the guidelines against the so-called early treatment.

Queiroga did not agree with Angotti’s conduct of the debate on the treatment of Covid-19 in the SUS, according to the minister’s allies.

The minister, however, modulated the speech and has invested in the Bolsonar agenda to hold on to the position.

Although upset by Angotti’s decisions, Queiroga has praised the secretary, saying that he participated in debates such as the transfer of technology for the production of AstraZeneca’s vaccine at Fiocruz.