Fundraiser for Ohio GOP candidate JD Vance axed after Spectrum News asked questions about host

[brooklynite]

Spectrum News

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A weekend fundraiser for Ohio U.S. Senate candidate JD Vance was abruptly canceled Friday after Spectrum News notified the Vance campaign it would report the host is one of several Ohio pain doctors cited in a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma and others for the amount of opioids they prescribed and the amount of money they received from major drug companies.

Vance, a Republican venture capitalist and author, and Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan are battling for the seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Rob Portman, a contest in which the opioid crisis in Ohio has been a flashpoint.

When Spectrum News first reached out to the Vance campaign Wednesday, the campaign said it was unaware the host was cited in the lawsuit and that he “hasn’t ever been accused of wrongdoing, never mind found guilty of wrongdoing in a court of law.” On Friday, shortly after being told Spectrum News was about to publish the story, the campaign replied that the organizers decided to cancel the fundraiser so it wouldn’t distract from Vance’s campaign.

The fundraiser was scheduled for Saturday at the Cincinnati home of Dr. Rajbir Minhas. “The Asian Indian Alliance invites you to [a] special reception with Ohio Senate candidate JD Vance,” according to a copy of the invitation obtained by Spectrum News. The alliance is an organization that “seeks to promote active participation in the political process by Asian Indians and create a strong political presence in the State of Ohio,” and Minhas is its vice president, according to its website.

[KentuckyWoman]

1. Mercy Health affiliation

Tells me about all I need to know about the doc. I know some folks like them, managed to find the rare good doc among the culls.

[Celerity]

7. Minhas was in the TOP TEN doctors in the entire nation for prescribing Oxycodone, dog knows how many

lives the motherfucker destroyed

see

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217254387#post5

[cbabe]

2. Tim Ryan drags JD Vance over 'fake nonprofit' that hired Big Pharma doc: 'One million people died'

https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/jd-vance-tim-ryan/

Tim Ryan drags JD Vance over 'fake nonprofit' that hired Big Pharma doc: 'One million people died'

…

You know what I haven’t done?” Ryan asked during the debate at WJW Fox 8’s headquarters in Cleveland. “I didn’t start a fake nonprofit pretending I was going to help people with addiction like JD Vance did — literally started a nonprofit and didn’t spend one nickel on anybody.”

“In fact, he brought in somebody from Perdue Pharma to be the spokesperson for the nonprofit,” Ryan continued. “The same drug company, Big Pharma, the big drug company, that had all the pill mills going, got everybody addicted. One million people died, JD. One million people died. And you started a nonprofit to try and take advantage of people in Ohio. And you know what? All you did with it was launch your political career.”

In August, AP reported that “the charity’s most notable accomplishment — sending an addiction specialist to Ohio’s Appalachian region for a yearlong residency — was tainted by ties among the doctor, the institute that employed her and Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of OxyContin."

According to the AP, the nonprofit — which Vance founded the day after the 2016 presidential election and closed “shortly after clinching the state’s Republican nomination for U.S. Senate” — hired Dr. Sally Satel, whose writings “sometimes cited Purdue-funded studies and doctors” and “[questioned] the role of prescription painkillers in the national opioid crisis.”

The American Enterprise Institute, where Satel was a resident scholar, “received regular $50,000 donations and other financial support from Purdue totaling $800,000,” the AP reported.

[marble falls]

3. Complete lack of ethics and any semblance of shame.

[grantcart]

4. Ass kissers are not known for having any shame at all.

[Celerity]

5. the lawsuit

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ohnd.241741/gov.uscourts.ohnd.241741.2.0.pdf

325. Cincinnati, Ohio pain doctor Dr. Rajbir Minhas is among the top 10 prescribers of
Oxycodone-Acetaminophen in the country and has received some $145,281.11 between 2013
and 2016 from eight of the defendants: Insys, Teva, Depomed, Mallinckrodt, Janssen, Purdue,
Endo, and Actavis.66 Dr. Minhas has been a regular prescriber of the Opioid Drugs, including
Nucynta, oxycodone, hydrocodone, fentanyl, oxycodone HCL, Butrans, Opana ER, OxyContin,
Endocet, and oxymorphone HCL ER.

[ZonkerHarris]

6. Fundraiser? Nope. Never happened. Nothing to see here...

[Farmer-Rick]

8. Kleptocracy at its best.

Doctors turned into drug pushers. There were a lot of them tied into opioid sales.

Then those doctors go on to be government representatives. To grift some more.