Politics

Amy Acton, ‘Ohio’s Anthony Fauci,’ Has Only Published One Research Paper. It’s About Horseback Riding.

Hush Naidoo Jade Photography/Unsplash

When the newly inaugurated governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, was picking someone to run the $640 million Ohio Department of Health in the winter of 2019, he only asked Amy Acton one question: What was your childhood like?

Acton charmed DeWine with her story — the unlikely triumph over a hardscrabble early beginning of homelessness and abuse, which is why DeWine’s top aide had recommended her in the first place. What apparently never came up: the doctor’s resume.

“It was February of 2019, … I got a call out of the blue: ‘The governor really wants to meet you,’” Acton said in public comments in October 2023 about her unlikely rise. “He said to me, ‘tell me about where you grew up. Tell me about your childhood.’ That’s the only question he ever asked.”

“And there’s something about him, I just got very real, because I wanted him to understand the social determinants of health,” she continued. “I said, ‘I had a really rough childhood in Youngstown’ — stuff I didn’t usually share with people in a large way.”

When COVID-19 arrived the next year, Acton, “Ohio’s Anthony Fauci,” had no track record of assessing health data in the scientific literature.

Acton has a medical degree, a master’s in public health and had taught at Ohio State University. But the Democrat’s research portfolio is very thin for someone who specializes in public policy rather than clinical medicine. A search for Acton in PubMed, the repository of medical papers hosted by the National Institutes of Health, turned up just one 2020 study about horse injuries. Nevertheless, Acton issued directives mandating policies restricting the lives of millions.

Seven years later, Acton is seeking to succeed DeWine as governor. She has centered her experience as a public health official as the core of her political identity. Allied groups say Acton is a “doctor, not a politician.” She faces Republican opponent Vivek Ramaswamy. Polls show a tight race.

A panned ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother has once again diverted attention from her pandemic policies to her upbringing.

But while Acton served as the state’s leading health official and as DeWine’s chief medical advisor, Ohio implemented a mask mandate that included indoor and outdoor locations. The state required all children to wear masks in school despite weak evidence for their efficacy in blunting COVID’s already low risk to kids.

An Ohio State research paper found that the pandemic’s hit to some students’ education was roughly equivalent to missing up to a full year’s worth of learning in math and English.

Under Acton’s leadership, Ohio was the first in the nation to announce school closures. In April 2020, Ohio announced schools would remain closed the entire year, while bars were permitted to resume some operations.

She resigned from her position in August 2020 as momentum gathered to ease COVID lockdowns, believing it would violate her Hippocratic Oath to do no harm.

Acton’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Her judgement was “awful … but very much in keeping with the rest of the public health establishment and their recommendations at the time,” said Anish Koka, a cardiologist and health policy commentator, to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It demonstrates a lack of critical thinking, an inability to analyze primary data, a willingness to follow marching orders. Somebody willing to say the sky is green despite evidence to the contrary. So I’m sure she’ll make an exceptional foot soldier.”

The single paper Acton co-authored in June 2020 in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine describes a retrospective study showing a decline in the number of people with horse-related injuries at the emergency room.

“Nonfatal horse-related injuries treated in emergency departments in the United States, 1990-2017,” reports a 46% decline in such injuries from 2000 to 2017. The paper concluded that “despite the recent decline in horse-related injuries, these injuries are still common.”

Accordingly, her curriculum vitae (CV) eschews the research publications of a typical university instructor and medical expert and instead highlights positive coverage in the media. She notes that she added a new high-level position at the health department for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

“Acton’s widely acclaimed leadership and inspiring guidance was seen in daily news conferences as COVID exploded in the spring of 2020,” the CV reads.

After the pandemic, Acton incorporated Acton Wellbeing LLC, a consulting business, and began making speeches about COVID. The trademark expires in 2027.

At universities and community centers she delivered a lecture called “The Leader We Wish We All Had Is YOU: Insights from the COVID-19 Pandemic,” an adaptation of a profile by The New York Times in 2020 headlined “The Leader We Wish We All Had.”

In May 2020, Republicans in the state legislature sought to curb Acton’s authority and limit any further stay-at-home orders to 14 days without the approval of a bipartisan committee.

DeWine, a Republican, threatened to veto it, and the proposed curbs never became law.