Sherrill claims Ciattarelli took millions to publish propaganda about opioids: Tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died

NJ gubernatorial candidate Rep.Mikie Sherrill accused Republican opponent Jack Ciattarelli of personally profiting off the opiate crisis in the tensest moment of Wednesday night’s debate.

“My opponent likes to talk a lot about being a businessman, but I think what New Jersey doesn’t know much about his business,” she said — pivoting from a question about the unemployment rate.“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.”Sherrill was referring to a 2023 NJ.com report — which came out near the end of Ciattarelli’s last campaign for governor — about training materials his company produced, which critics said included pharma industry talking points about about opiates that were dangerously inaccurate.According to the report, one article published by the company said, “The risk of opioid misuse is low among patients with chronic pain who do not have preexisting substance use disorders.”Sherrill tried to use the work by Ciattarelli’s company to tie him to the opiate crisis.

“Tens of thousands of New Jerseyans died.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 said.

Ciattarelli did not directly address the allegations, instead counter-attacking.Ciattarelli snapped back, “first of all, shame on you.”“During the Biden administration, she had no problem whatsoever with tens of thousands of people crashing our border each and every day, not knowing what impact they had in our communities with regard to the fentanyl crisis,” he fired back.The NJ.com article reported that Ciattarelli’s company, Somerville-based Galen Publishing, made $12.2 million between 2007 and 2016 on a contract for continuing education materials with the University of Tennessee’s pharmacy school.

Critics claimed that the materials used pharma industry ...