I am writing about the ad Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign made, in which Dr. Amy Acton’s estranged mother calls her a “liar.” I’m also writing about the campaign’s plan to spend $4 million running it. It is No. 1 of the most shameful things I have seen in Ohio politics.
Court records and contemporary news reports back up what Dr. Acton has said for years. She and her brother endured hunger, neglect and homelessness, including a winter living in a tent. Her stepfather was indicted in 1978 for raping her when she was a child, and she and her brother were taken out of their mother’s home. Using the woman who lost custody of that child to attack her decades later is not “legitimate” campaigning. It reopens a survivor’s wounds for political gain.
I have known Dr. Acton since 2019, when she served as Ohio’s Director of Health under Gove. Mike DeWine. I worked with her by phone and in writing on COVID-19 and on the opioid epidemic. She was consistently intelligent, compassionate and focused on the health of ordinary Ohioans. She listened carefully, and she followed through.
Her life story is the kind Ohioans should be proud of. She paid her own way through Youngstown State University, earned her medical degree from NEOMED, and earned a master’s in public health from Ohio State. Few people climb out of a childhood like hers. Fewer still spend their careers protecting other people’s children.
An attack like this has no place in politics or in any public conversation. If it works, the message to every survivor of childhood abuse is that their worst memories can be turned into a weapon against them. The First Amendment protects even ugly speech, so the punishment has to come from us: from voters, from party leaders and from donors who say clearly that this is beneath Ohio.
As for my own politics: I live like a Republican, think like a Democrat, and am fiercely independent. This is not a partisan letter. It is a matter of basic decency, and decency should not depend on which party you belong to.
Respectfully,
/s/William Bauer
William R. Bauer, MD, PhD, F.A.A.N. Retired, Ohio for 87 years
Grapevine, Texas
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BIO: William R. Bauer, MD, PhD, FAAN, is a neurologist, pain medicine physician, and medical researcher with more than 50 years of experience in clinical practice, medical education, and research. He served on the faculty of Case Western Reserve University and was Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Toledo until his retirement in 2019. A former president of the Huron County Medical Society and Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology, Dr. Bauer continues his work as an independent physician-researcher. He advocates for evidence-based pain management, protection of the physician-patient relationship, and legislative reforms to improve access to appropriate care for patients with chronic pain.
Is this the same dr that went to prison for over prescribing drugs to drug addicts