Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) has continued to slam her Republican gubernatorial opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, on his ties to the opioid industry despite Ciattarelli’s threat to bring a defamation lawsuit against her for her claims.
Sherrill alleged during last week’s New Jersey gubernatorial debate that Ciattarelli profited from the nation’s opioid crisis through his medical publishing company and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of adults and children. Ciattarelli denied Sherrill’s claims and swiftly threatened to sue her for defamation.
“You’re trying to divert from the fact you killed tens of thousands of people by printing your misinformation, your propaganda,” Sherrill said during the debate.
Ciattarelli campaign spokesman Chris Russell called it a “reckless and defamatory claim” and told the Washington Examiner that Sherrill’s allegations indicate that her “desperation is showing.” He confirmed that the campaign would provide an update once Ciattarelli files the lawsuit.
In the face of Ciattarelli’s threatened lawsuit, Sherrill has not backed away from her comments. She stood firm on her claims tying Ciattarelli’s publishing company, Galen Publishing, to the opioid crisis in New Jersey in a Monday press conference. Sherrill said that while she worked in the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey, she was seeking to stop opioid overprescription.
“Jack was looking at ways to help people get access to the drugs that were killing them,” Sherrill said during the opioid press conference alongside advocates for those affected by substance abuse. “Jack made millions. The opioid companies made billions. And thousands of New Jerseyans were dying.”
Sherrill discussed printed materials and an app that Ciattarelli’s company helped produce that had education materials related to opioids. According to a webpage her campaign launched Monday titled “Opioid Jack: The Ciattarelli files,” his company was paid “over $3 million by opioid companies to produce continuing medical education materials that downplayed the dangers of opioids.”
The Ciattarelli campaign has consistently denied Sherrill’s allegations and has called her a “proven liar.”
“The truth is that Jack Ciattarelli’s medical publishing company helped to create an online tool which allowed a small group of chronic pain sufferers to educate themselves on treatment options and better advocate for their own healthcare choices when meeting with their medical professionals,” Russell said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
Russell slammed Sherrill’s rhetoric, pointing to an article from New Jersey Monitor editor Terrence T. McDonald, who called Sherrill’s claim during the debate “wild” and “dangerous.”
“Her reckless and defamatory claim that Jack ‘killed tens of thousands of people, including children’ has been roundly criticized by members of the press, legal scholars, and people in both parties. If she had any decency, she would retract her slanderous comments and apologize,” Russell said.
Sean Higgins, the Sherrill campaign’s communications director, encouraged voters to check out the “Opioid Jack” webpage in a statement to the Washington Examiner.
“Perennial gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli has run for governor three times as a ‘small business owner,’ but the moment Mikie Sherrill pressed him on the truth about his business, which peddled dangerous misinformation about opioids and was paid to develop an app to coach patients to get Hydrocodone, he’s threatening to file a desperate lawsuit to shut the conversation down,” Higgins said in a statement.
New Jersey opioid deaths started to skyrocket around 2015, according to state data. The numbers have stayed just under 3,000 deaths per year from 2018 through 2023, except for 2021 and 2022, when the state surpassed 3,100 opioid-related deaths.
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The race to succeed Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ) has been a heated contest between the two candidates. Though most of the latest polls between the two have placed Sherrill as the front-runner, a recent Emerson College poll at the end of September showed the two tied at 43%. A Fox News-commissioned poll from Sept. 30 had Sherrill up 50% to Ciattarelli’s 42%.
Election Day is less than one month away in the Garden State, set for Nov. 4.