A New York City lawmaker is demanding state health officials strip Dr. Jay Varma of his medical license following a series of bombshell confessions caught on tape and published by conservative podcaster Steven Crowder.
Last weekend, the New York Post reported that Republican Councilwoman Vickie Paladino sent a letter to the New York Department of Health demanding a disciplinary investigation after the city’s “Covid czar” was caught bragging about sex parties under lockdown.
“It’s so funny,” Varma said on tape, “… because I did all this like deviant, like sexual stuff while I was … on TV.”
Varma was a senior adviser for then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s coronavirus response team during the lockdowns.
“Dr. Varma’s actions betrayed public trust … which is in direct violation of a medical professional’s responsibility,” Paladino wrote in a letter on Sept. 26. “It is imperative that the Department of Health’s Office of Professional Medical Conduct takes immediate action to prevent further harm.”
The letter was sent just one day after Crowder’s “Mug Club” podcast published another tape of Varma talking about efforts to “spin” stories for a monkeypox drug manufactured by his former employer, SIGA Technologies Inc.
“We want the Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, to approve our drug specifically for Monkeypox and right now it’s only considered experimental and they won’t approve it based on this study,” Varma told an undercover reporter. “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 will probably work. And in the meantime, you know, people should prescribe it.”
“We need to design more studies, but we also need to keep up the people’s belief that the [TPOXX] drug works. So, that’s why spinning it in the media is helpful,” Varma said.
Dr. Varma conceded on camera that “the risk [for Monkeypox] is very low” in the United States, but he wanted to spin the success of his company’s drug “so that people are — won’t like, dump the stock thinking that the company is worthless.”
Stock for the drug company tanked nearly 16 percent on the day Crowder published Varma’s comments about monkeypox.
“Over the past several days, inaccurate and misleading comments made by Dr. Jay Varma, as well as questionable conduct he engaged in while leading New York City’s COVID-19 response, have come to light,” SIGA Technologies wrote in a statement. “We are deeply angered by his comments and behavior which do not reflect SIGA, the way we do business or our values. As a result of his conduct and lack of judgment, Dr. Varma was terminated from SIGA Technologies on September 19, 2024. He is no longer affiliated with SIGA in any way.”
At least two New York law firms have since launched investigations into the company after Dr. Varma’s comment surfaced, including Kirby McInerney LLP and Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz.
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