Oops.
Mikie Sherrill’s “Hail Mary” play for Election 2025 down the final three-week stretch has been to slanderously accuse Jack Ciattarelli of killing thousands of Americans (!) since his former publishing company printed medical materials for pharmaceutical companies (!!) that produced opioids. By that logic? The guy who invented locomotives is also responsible for the Holocaust. Insane. And clearly defamatory.
But it’s worse than all that.
Not only is the Sherrill campaign’s desperate attack a lie, but in a Sherrillian twist, the Democrat Congresswoman has reportedly accepted THOUSANDS of dollars from companies linked to the Opioid Crisis including “at least $4,500 from the Teva Pharmaceuticals PAC, $1,000 from the Endo Pharmaceuticals PAC and $17,000 from Johnson & Johnson”; the grand total from this sector is at least $25,500.
Details from Fox Digital:
AmerisourceBergen has been accused, perhaps most notably in 2021 by Washington state’s Democratic attorney general Bob Ferguson, of profiting off billions from the opioid epidemic through the shipment of dangerous prescription painkillers with no regard for how those drugs were contributing to the deaths of citizens. AmerisourceBergen, which now goes by Cencora, and two other companies would go on to reach a settlement with Washington state for over $500 million.
In early 2022, AmerisourceBergen, whose executives were exposed for previously mocking West Virginians as “pillbillies” at the height of the opioid crisis, announced it would be agreeing to a $6.1 billion settlement that would be paid out over 18 years and would cover the “vast majority of the opioid lawsuits filed by state and local governmental entities,” according to a press release.
In late 2022, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit against AmerisourceBergen, one of the country’s largest wholesale pharmaceutical distributors, alleging the company “for years flouted its legal obligations and prioritized profits over the well-being of Americans” by failing to report suspicious orders of controlled substances, like fentanyl and oxycodone, which were then sold illegally, fueling the devastating opioid epidemic.
The other three pharmaceutical companies that donated thousands of dollars to Sherrill’s campaigns through their PACs also reached massive settlements for their roles contributing to the opioid crisis, which includes over $4 billion from Teva to participating states and local governments, according to a press release from Texas AG Ken Paxton’s office.
Johnson and Johnson agreed to pay $5 billion as part of their settlement, according to their 2022 press release.
But this isn’t really an “oops.”
Sherrill’s people had to know about these donations. If they didn’t and attacked Jack anyway? That’s political malpractice. The more likely conclusion to draw from this debacle is, as I’ve said, her campaign believes she’s falling behind (or is already behind) and needed to do something desperate to maintain her slipping footing in this race. You don’t change your months-long “mother of four helicopters” messaging to “Jack is Opioid Hitler” on a whim…
Developing…
