Cleveland.com: Ramaswamy’s misleading COVID attack ads on Acton omit his own pandemic advocacy

Cleveland.com: Ramaswamy’s misleading COVID attack ads on Acton omit his own pandemic advocacy

A new fact check from Cleveland.com reveals how Vivek Ramaswamy and his allies are lying about Dr. Amy Acton’s leadership as Ohio’s Health Director under Gov. Mike DeWine, while highlighting how Ramaswamy tried to profit off of the COVID-19 pandemic and pushed extreme ideas like a “national registry to segregate” Americans based on their immunity.

The report also notes that rather than stand by his own record, Ramaswamy later paid someone to scrub references to his COVID work from his Wikipedia page — reminding voters yet again why he can’t be trusted to look out for anyone but himself.

“Why should Ohioans believe a single word Vivek Ramaswamy says when he and his allies continue to push repeatedly-debunked lies and attempt to paper over his calls to ‘segregate the population’ and his efforts to line his pockets from the COVID-19 pandemic?” said DGA spokesperson Izzi Levy. “Ohio families deserve a governor who will put them first, not a scammer who proves at every turn that there’s nothing he won’t say or do to make a buck — even if it means lying to Ohioans and throwing them under the bus.”

Read more below:

Cleveland.com: Ramaswamy’s misleading COVID attack ads on Acton omit his own pandemic advocacy

• Republican gubernatorial nominee Vivek Ramaswamy and his allies are airing attack ads excoriating Democratic opponent Amy Acton over her high-profile role in Ohio’s COVID-19 policies as state health director.
• The ads also don’t mention that the Columbus-area entrepreneur advocated during the coronavirus crisis for measures like a national immunity registry, nor that he was an adviser on COVID issues to then-Lt. Gov. Jon Husted.
• The first ad, which Ramaswamy’s campaign began airing in March as it kicked off a $10 million TV ad campaign, asserts that “Amy Acton called off Ohio’s election at the last minute, defying a judge’s orders and abusing her power.”
• But while Acton signed the order, the decision to call off the March 17 primary – which ended up being held April 28 – was made by top Republican statewide elected officials, including Gov. Mike DeWine and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, with help from then-Lt. Gov. Jon Husted and then-Attorney General Dave Yost.
• Ramaswamy, meanwhile, stated in a 2021 op-ed that he served in 2020 as an informal COVID adviser to Republican Jon Husted, now a U.S. senator running to keep his seat this fall.
• At the time, Ramaswamy was CEO of Roivant Sciences, a New York-based biotech firm that was developing a potential COVID-19 treatment called gimsilumab (which was ultimately found to show no significant benefit). Roivant disclosures show it spent $70,000 on lobbying the federal government in 2020 and early 2021 on issues related to COVID‑19 drug development and approval.
• During an April 2020 podcast appearance, Ramaswamy called for mandatory antibody testing, then creating a national registry to segregate those who either already had coronavirus or had a natural immunity so they can “go back to normal life” without having to follow COVID rules.
• Ramaswamy left Roivant in early 2023 to focus on his presidential campaign. A Wikipedia editor later stated that Ramaswamy paid him to remove a reference to his service on Ohio’s “COVID-19 Response Team” from his Wikipedia page.

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