There's an App for That
Opioids and the 2025 NJ Governor's Race
The candidates for New Jersey governor met last night for their second debate. Democratic Party nominee Rep. Michelle “Mikie” Sherrill traded barbs with Republican Party nominee Jack Ciattarelli.
This newsletter was unimpressed with Rep. Sherrill’s oppo dump in the first gubernatorial debate, held last month. When discussing her opponent’s record, she was unclear and didn’t land any punches. She seemed unable to respond to (easily anticipated) attacks on personal finances.
Sherrill was better prepared this time.
She recycled some oppo from Ciattarelli’s failed campaign for governor in 2021, when the New Jersey Democratic State Committee attacked the Republican for work his former medical publishing company performed. The ad was largely based on a NJ.com investigation, which found Ciattarelli’s received $12.2 million to publish “pharmaceutical company-funded content” that minimized the risk of opioid addiction. Here’s what Sherrill said about that:
“My opponent likes to talk a lot about being a businessman, but I think what New Jersey doesn’t know as much about - his business, how he made his millions by working with some of the worst offenders and saying that opioids were safe, putting out propaganda, publishing their propaganda, while tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died.”
Ciattarelli didn’t address the charge directly. Instead, he pivoted to the Biden-Harris record on border enforcement.
According to the New York Post report, Ciattarelli’s campaign said in 2023 that the University of Tennessee “picked the topics, had its faculty write the articles and oversaw the editorial content” and that his firm merely served “as an intermediary to help get industry funding” for the university. I am not sure this is a satisfactory answer.
“Tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died,” Sherrill continued. “And as if that wasn’t enough, then he was paid to develop an app so that people who were addicted could more easily get access to opioids.” She made this point twice:
“…you got paid to develop and app, so that more people could get more opioids and die.”
Details on this “app” are hard to find online. It appears that Advanced Studies in Medicine (ASIM), a subsidiary of Galen Publishing, developed the app in partnership with another company, ProPatient. The app, “Living with Pain,” was funded by a pharmaceutical company.
According to a columnist for the New Jersey Monitor:
Ciattarelli’s company did indeed team up with a company called ProPatient in 2016 to establish what it called an “innovative, responsive online resource” called Living with Pain that offered to help patients suffering from chronic pain “engage my care team when I feel they are reluctant to help.”
There is a company by that name, based in North Carolina. The company website no longer works.
Ciattarelli waved away Sherrill’s attacks on his business record as “another desperate tactic by a desperate campaign on behalf of a desperate candidate.”
“I’m happy to publish the information,” Sherrill replied.
“I’m sure you are,” Ciattarelli said.
Watch for a microsite from the Sherrill campaign soon, with all the oppo research Democrats have collected on Ciattarelli’s medical publishing businesses.
Photo credit: ABC7 News
Opposition Research in the News…
A video of Rep. Katie Porter using the f-bomb went viral this week. That prompted others - former staffers? political rivals? - to share some of their oppo. One item in particular gives new meaning to the term “oppo dump.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi sparred with Democratic Senators for hours this week, referring often to a binder which appeared to be filled with oppo research. “I mean, that is opposition research straight up,” said MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace. “And it is a clear violation of the Hatch Act to be created by a government employee.”