Biden administration indefinitely postpones ban on menthol cigarettes amid election-year pushback from Black voters, others

Menthol cigarettes and other tobacco products are displayed at a store in San Francisco on May 17, 2018. For the second time in recent months, President Joe Biden’s administration has delayed a plan to ban menthol cigarettes, a decision that is certain to infuriate anti-smoking advocates but could avoid angering Black voters ahead of November elections. (Associated Press file photo by Jeff Chiu)

By Matthew Perrone and Zeke Miller

Associated Press

President Joe Biden’s administration is indefinitely delaying a long-awaited menthol cigarette ban, a decision that infuriated anti-smoking advocates but could avoid a political backlash from Black voters in November.

In a statement Friday, Biden’s top health official gave no timeline for issuing the rule, saying only that the administration would take more time to consider feedback, including from civil rights groups.

“It’s clear that there are still more conversations to have, and that will take significantly more time,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.

The White House has held dozens of meetings in recent months with groups opposing the ban, including civil-rights organizers, law-enforcement officials and small business owners. Most of the groups have financial ties to cigarette companies.

The announcement is another setback for Food and Drug Administration officials, who drafted the ban and predicted it would prevent hundreds of thousands of smoking-related deaths over 40 years. The agency has worked toward banning menthol across multiple administrations without finalizing a rule.

“This decision prioritizes politics over lives, especially Black lives,” said Yolonda Richardson of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, in an emailed statement. “It is especially disturbing to see the administration parrot the false claims of the tobacco industry about support from the civil rights community.”

Richardson noted that the ban is supported by groups including the NAACP and the Congressional Black Caucus.

Previous FDA efforts on menthol have been derailed by tobacco industry pushback or competing political priorities. With both Biden and former President Donald Trump vying for the support of Black voters, the ban’s potential impact has been scrutinized by Republicans and Democrats heading into the fall election.

Anti-smoking advocates have been pushing the FDA to eliminate the flavor since the agency gained authority to regulate certain tobacco ingredients in 2009. Menthol is the only cigarette flavor that wasn’t banned under that law, a carveout negotiated by industry allies in Congress. But the law instructed the FDA to continue studying the issue.

More than 11% of U.S. adults smoke, with rates roughly even between white and Black people, but about 80% of Black smokers smoke menthol, which the FDA says masks the harshness of smoke, making it easier to start and harder to quit. Also, most teenagers who smoke cigarettes prefer menthols.

For decades, cigarette companies focused menthol advertising and promotions in Black communities, sponsoring music festivals and neighborhood events. Industry documents released in litigation show companies viewed menthol cigarettes as a good “starter product” because they were more palatable to teens.

The FDA released its draft of the proposed ban in 2022. Officials under Biden initially targeted last August to finalize the rule. Late last year, White House officials said they would take until March to review the measure. When that deadline passed last month, several anti-smoking groups filed a lawsuit to force its release.

“We are disappointed with the action of the Biden administration, which has caved in to the scare tactics of the tobacco industry,” said Dr. Mark Mitchell of the National Medical Association, an African American physician group that is suing the administration.

Separately, Rev. Al Sharpton and other civil rights leaders have warned that a menthol ban would create an illegal market for the cigarettes in Black communities and invite more confrontations with police.

The FDA and health advocates have long rejected such concerns, noting FDA’s enforcement of the rule would only apply to companies that make or sell cigarettes, not to individuals.

An FDA spokesperson said Friday the agency is still committed to banning menthol cigarettes. “As we’ve made clear, these product standards remain at the top of our priorities,” Jim McKinney said in a statement.

Smoking can cause cancer, strokes and heart attacks and is blamed for 480,000 deaths each year in the U.S., including 45,000 among Black Americans.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Bryan Hubbard, who wanted Ky. to help finance research into psychedelic for drug treatment, takes his cause to State of Ohio

Bryan Hubbard (Herald-Leader photo by Alex Acquisto)

Kentucky Health News

The man who wanted Kentucky to use some of its opioid-settlement money for research that could lead to legalizing a psychedelic drug to treat addiction, but lost his job when a new attorney general was elected last fall, is taking his cause to the State of Ohio.

"Bryan Hubbard, former executive director of the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission, has signed a contract with the State of Ohio," report Alex Acquisto and Austin Horn of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "His job: To help build public-private partnerships for potential projects 'related to the treatment of traumatic brain Injury, post-traumatic stress disorder and other related and unrelated mental-health and substance-use conditions,' according to a spokesperson in the office of Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague. . . . Hubbard will be paid $45,000 for his independent contracting services, according to his contract, which was reviewed by the Herald-Leader."

Brittany Halpin, Prague’s press secretary, told the newspaper in an email, “In part, the work is set to assist the treasurer’s office with determining the feasibility of potential solutions with ResultsOhio and other pay-for-success models.” ResultsOhio uses public and private funding to address Ohio’s “most pressing social and public health challenges,” according to the treasurer’s website. 

Hubbard told the Herald-Leader that as he works with the state to “deliver novel treatment access and research opportunities for veterans and opioid dependent individuals,” he is partnering with an Ohio-based foundation to “create the framework for ibogaine clinical trials in Ohio.”

Ibogaine is a psychedelic derived from the African iboga plant. It is illegal everywhere except Mexico and New Zealand and has been reported to reduce or eliminate drug-withdawal symptoms while posink risks to the heart. Hubbard wanted the Kentucky commission to spend $42 million, 5 percent of what the state had received in lawsuit settlements from drug makers and distributors, to help fund research that could lead to legalization of the drug as a treatment for addiction.

Hubbard's boss was then-Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who countenanced Hubbard's advocacy but did not endorse it outright as he ran for governor. He was succeeded by Russell Coleman, a former U.S. attorney who was not keen on ibogaine or Hubbard, and asked him to resign.

Hubbard told the Herald-Leader that he was “saddened that a lack of courage and vision from [Coleman] has deprived Kentucky of its opportunity to lead the nation in the development of ibogaine’s revolutionary therapeutic potentials. However, I am strongly encouraged that genuine leaders exist across the river to ensure that ibogaine’s promise has an opportunity to be fulfilled for all who may choose to seek it.” Coleman’s office did not respond to emailed questions from the Herald-Leader.

Hubbard is part of a broader ibogaine effort. Last week, the REID (Reaching Everyone in Distress) Foundation announced that he would “research and raise awareness for emerging therapies such as ibogaine as potential breakthrough treatments for PTSD and opioid addiction in Ohio.”

"The REID Foundation was created by Rex Elsass, who lost his son to addiction in 2019," the Herald-Leader reports. "Elsass is also one of the nation’s premier Republican operatives. In 2016, GQ magazine dubbed him “The Most Powerful Man in the GOP (And You’ve Never Heard Of Him).” His political media and consulting firm is called The Strategy Group. Elsass has been close to Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, serving as a key adviser in Paul’s 2016 bid for president. As senator, Paul has spearheaded efforts into seeking alternative therapies to treat addiction. A donor with close connections to Paul, Jeff Yass, was the primary funder of outside groups" that helped Cameron's challenge to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear. "Elsass’ political firm has performed work for those groups."

Yass’ investment firm "has some interest in biopharmaceutical companies with a focus on psychedelic addiction treatments like ibogaine," the Herald-Leader notes. "Elsass’ advocacy for ibogaine can be traced back to Hubbard’s time in Kentucky." He did that at an opioid-commission meeting, and "a former executive assistant at his political operation started a group called the Kentucky Ibogaine Initiative. Elsass and the current president of The Strategy Group, Ryan Rodgers, are still listed as directors" with the Kentucky secretary of state.

Beshear wants lawmakers to be empathetic on controversial issues like abortion; sees better health for Ky. as possible legacy

Gov. Andy Beshear during his interview with Kentucky
Health News in the Capitol's State Reception Room

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

In an interview Wednesday with Kentucky Health News, Gov. Andy Beshear said he would be pleased if one of his legacies as governor was improving the health of Kentuckians, and looked forward to the upcoming legislative session.

Beshear acknowledged that if Kentucky has clearly improved its health status when his term ends in 2027, he would have to share that legacy with his father, Steve Beshear, who expanded Medicaid coverage in Kentucky to 600,000 people when he was governor from 2007 through 2015.

"I'd love for both Beshears to be remembered for that," he said. 

Beshear's comments came after he was asked why he thought Kentucky showed a slight upward trend in the latest America's Health Rankings by the United Health Foundation.

The foundation ranks Kentucky 41st for overall health, up from 43rd in the last two rankings (2022 and 2019; the rankings were not made in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic). The state was 45th in 2018, 42nd in 2017, 45th in 2016, 44th in 2015 and 47th in 2014.

Beshear said increasing access to health care has been key to improving the health of Kentuckians, not only as a way to improve the quality of their lives, but  as a way to improve the state's workforce. 

"I believe that we are doing better, and that we will do better for a couple of reasons," he said. "First, especially coming out of the pandemic, we are seeing expansion of health-care access all over Kentucky." 

As examples, he pointed to the first hospital being built in West Louisville in 150 years, the expansion of the Bullitt County hospital and the new clinic that  Morehead-based St. Claire HealthCare is building in Morgan County. He said health-care systems are "recognizing that the overall health of our people is a shared responsibility." 

Other examples, "especially over the last four years," he said, are "the leaps we have made in treating addiction, especially the number of treatment beds." He said Kentucky has the most treatment beds per person in the country, and that has improved the overall health of Kentuckians. 

"That's a big start towards getting people healthy," he said. 

Beshear agreed that his father's 2014 expansion of Medicaid to people who earn up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level, under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, has played a key role in improving access to care. He noted that his administration has extended post-birth Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months, and expanded dental, vision and hearing benefits.

Outcome-based payments? Looking forward, Beshear said it will be important to find a way to use "significant dollars" to incentivize and reimburse Medicaid providers who have good patient outcomes, as opposed to the current model of reimbursing them only for the care they provide. 

"How do we create the best platform and structure to make this happen?" he pondered. "And that's going to be what we're looking at, really closely. . . .  Again, if we can move towards a model where we reward outcomes, I think we can do significantly better." 

Beshear also spoke about the importance of preventive screenings as a way to improve health outcomes, pointing to Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman's experience as an example of their importance. Coleman recently underwent a double mastectomy after concerns were raised during a routine physical examination. 

"That shows just how critical and important that is," he said. 

Legislative issues: When it comes to controversial health issues, like "red-flag" laws or abortion, Beshear said it's important to approach these topics from a place of "basic human empathy" where people can find common ground.  

Beshear said he supports a red-flag law, which allows temporary confiscation of an individual's firearms if a judge finds that person is a risk to themselves or to others. A bipartisan bill to enact a version of the law is planned for introduction in the General Assembly session that begins Tuesday, Jan. 2.

But first, the governor said, he would like to stop the auctioning of murder weapons to the highest bidder. He said his support for such laws has grown stronger since the loss of a close friend, Tommy Elliott, in a mass shooting at the Old National Bank in downtown Louisville. 

"I know what it's like to lose a very close friend in a mass shooting," he said. "I know what it feels like to have someone who you love and care about murdered and taken from you." 

Beshear said it is imperative for the legislatuire to add rape and incest exceptions to the state's near-abortion ban, along with an exception for non-viable pregnancies. 

"There are kids right now that have been raped and impregnated by family members that don't have any options," he said. "Hadley said it right, she wasn't the first and she wasn't the last. There are Hadleys out there right now and they deserve better." 

Hadley Duvall, who was sexually abused by her stepfather for years and became pregnant at age 12 and eventually miscarried, appeared in an ad for Besehear's re-election campaign where she said, “To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her is unthinkable.”

Beshear's Republican opponent, Attorney General Daniel Cameron, responded to that attack by asking Beshear in a debate and afterward how far into a pregnancy a woman should be allowed to get an abortion.

In his campaign and in the interview, Beshear wouldn't say, and turned the tables: "I believe in access, but that's not what we're going to see from this General Assembly," he told Kentucky Health News. "I believe in access with reasonable restrictions. That's not where we are. We are at zero access." 

In the interview and several others this month, the Democratic governor said he thinks he and Republicans who run the legislature can have a more cooperative relationship because he can't seek re-election in 2027.  

"This is the period of time when we can get these things done and not to be seen as a benefit or a detriment, politically," he said. "And I'm already seeing a little difference in tone, and that's everyone. . . . I think we're seeing just a different tone and willingness to talk or to . . . talk differently."

Fact-checkers at Politifact say RFK Jr.'s presidential campaign of conspiracy theories, mainly about health topics, is 'Lie of the Year'

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is an independent candidate
for president. (Associated Press photo by Meg Kinnard)

Politifact is a fact-checking service of The Poynter Institute, a foundation for journalism that says it is "an instructor, innovator, convener and resource for anyone who aspires to engage and inform citizens."

By Madison Czopek and Katie Sanders, Politifact

As pundits and politicos spar over whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign will factor into the outcome of the 2024 election, one thing is clear: Kennedy’s political following is built on a movement that seeks to legitimize conspiracy theories.

His claims decrying vaccines have roiled scientists and medical experts and stoked anger over whether his work harms children. He has made suggestions about the cause of Covid-19 that he acknowledges sound racist and antisemitic.

Bolstered by his famous name and family’s legacy, his campaign of conspiracy theories has gained an electoral and financial foothold. He is running as an independent — having abandoned his pursuit of the Democratic nomination — and raised more than $15 million. A political action committee pledged to spend between $10 million and $15 million to get his name on the ballot in 10 states.

Even though he spent the past two decades as a prominent leader of the anti-vaccine movement, Kennedy rejects a blanket “anti-vax” label that he told Fox News in July makes him “look crazy, like a conspiracy theorist.”

But Kennedy draws bogus conclusions from scientific work. He employs “circumstantial evidence” as if it is proof. In TV, podcast and political appearances for his campaign in 2023, Kennedy steadfastly maintained that:

• Vaccines cause autism.
• No childhood vaccines “have ever been tested in a safety study pre-licensing.”
• There is “tremendous circumstantial evidence” that psychiatric drugs cause mass shootings, and the National Institutes of Health refuses to research the link out of deference to pharmaceutical companies.
• Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were discredited as Covid-19 treatments so Covid-19 vaccines could be granted emergency use authorization, a win for Big Pharma.
• Exposure to the pesticide atrazine contributes to gender dysphoria in children.
• Covid-19 is “targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

For Kennedy, conspiracies aren’t limited to public health. He claims “members of the CIA” were involved in the assassination of his uncle, John F. Kennedy. He doesn’t “believe that (Sirhan) Sirhan’s bullets ever hit my father,” Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. He insists the 2004 presidential election was stolen from Democrat John Kerry.

News organizations, including PolitiFact, have documented why those claims and many others are false, speculative or conspiracy-minded. PolitiFact did not receive a response from Kennedy’s campaign for this story. Kennedy has sat for numerous interviews and dismissed the critics, not with the grievance and bluster of former President Donald Trump, but with a calm demeanor. He amplifies the alleged plot and repeats dubious scientific evidence and historical detail.

Four of Kennedy’s siblings called Kennedy’s decision to run as an independent “dangerous” and “perilous” to the country. “Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment,” the group wrote in a joint statement.

Kennedy brushes it off, saying he has a large family, and some members support him.

On her “Honestly” podcast in June, Bari Weiss asked whether Kennedy worried his position on autism and vaccines would cloud his other positions and cost him votes. His answer ignored his history: “Show me where I got it wrong,” he said, “and I’ll change.” In a campaign constructed by lies, that might be the biggest one. (Read more)

Incoming attorney general replaces leading advocate of funding research aimed at legalizing psychedelic for addiction treatment

By Al Cross

Kentucky Health News

The main proponent of using state opioid-settlement money to fund research into a psychdelic drug as a treatment for addiction will soon be out of a job.

Bryan Hubbard, the chair and executive director of the state Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission under outgoing Attorney General Daniel Cameron, will be replaced when Russsell Coleman becomes attorney general Jan. 1. Coleman was elected in November, as his fellow Republican was losing the race for governor.

D. Christopher Evans

The commission's new chair and executive director will be Christoper Evans, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent and leader who was acting administrator of the agency for more than five months in 2021, while President Biden's nominee, Anne Milgram, was being chosen and confirmed.

When Coleman announced his executive team in the state Senate chamber Tuesday, Kentucky Health News asked for his opinion and Evans's opinion of funding research on ibogaine, the African psychedelic that can suppress opioid-withdrawal symptoms but poses risks to the heart and is illegal everywhere but Mexico and New Zealand.

Coleman didn't give Evans an opportunity to respond, but said "We're gonna take a look at ibogaine," and would "make sure we look at that objectively." He said earlier that "Personnel is policy" and the change signals his belief that the "three-legged stool" of prevention, enforcement and treatment needs to focus more on prevention of drug use.

"We do not have a statewide prevention effort in the commonwealth," he said, adding later, "There's some great ideas out there on the prevention side. I want to see if we can scale those up. . .  I understand there's been a lot of ink spilled on ibogaine. My concern is we are not as focused as intently as we should be on the prevention piece of this."

The commission handles the state's half of the $900 million or so that the state will get in lawsuit settlements from opioid manufacturers and distributors. As chair and executive director, Hubbard promoted the idea of spending $42 million, about 5 percent of the money, on research aimed at getting Food and Drug Administration approval for use of ibogaine in addiction treatment.

At the commission's Nov. 14 meeting, Hubbard read several endorsements of ibogaine by experts, foundations and the American Legion. One foundation is supporting ibogaine research at Stanford University, which is awaiting publication, presumably in a peer-reviewed journal. Hubbard said the researcher had agreed to discuss his findings with the commission after they are published.

Bryan Hubbard

Hubbard noted that on Oct. 31 the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services issued a notice of funding opportunity for research on psychedelics including ibogaine as treatment for substance-use disorder. The notice says "There is an urgent need to develop novel treatments for SUD in light of the escalating rates of substance use, addiction, and overdose."

Several commission members spoke favorably of funding ibogaine research, but a non-voting member, state Rep. Danny Bentley, R-Russell (Greenup County), a pharmacist, called it "false hope," saying "It will take $2 billion and 10 years to get that product on the market."

Bentley said the drug's effect on the heart will put it in a "black box," meaning it will have one of the highest safety-related warnings assigned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Other critics have said the heart effects would mean that treatment would be limited to hospitals, and thus expensive.

Bentley cautioned the commission to be aware of who is funding ibogaine research. Citing his education as a pharmacist and one of the earlier witnesses at the commission, he said he was taught that "If the people paying for the research own the company and the drug, it was invalid from the get-go."

Gov. Andy Beshear was also critical of the idea and the way it was promoted by Hubbard. His initial promotion of it was countenanced by Cameron, whom Beshear defeated for re-election.

Around the time Cameron implicitly endorsed the idea, a firm owned by a major national political contributor increased its investment in such research and gave Cameron a political boost, the Daily Beast reported.

Unlike Hubbard, Evans will have a deputy: Jessie Halladay, now a senior policy specialist with the Criminal Justice Institute. She has been special adviser to the Louisville Metro Police Department, senior policy adviser to the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, communications director for Jefferson County attorney and a public-safety and social-services reporter for the Louisville Courier Journal.

Evans, who will head the commission starting next month, was the first special agent in charge of the DEA's Louisville Field Division. In that job, he partnered with Coleman, then U.S. attorney for Western Kentucky, to create a DEA office in Paducah, a Coleman news release said.

Coleman said Evans rose to become chief of operations for DEA, which led to his stint as acting administrator. The release said he is a director of Christopher 2X Game Changers in Louisville and the Kentucky State Police Foundation.

Abortion-rights lawsuit needs a new plaintiff, ACLU of Ky. says

UPDATE, Dec. 18: The ACLU of Kentucky, lacking a plaintiff, has dismissed its lawsuit.

Abortion-rights advocates are seeking a new plaintiff for their Kentucky class-action lawsuit because the plaintiff, who was eight weeks pregnant, "learned her embryo no longer had cardiac activity," the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky and affiliated groups said in a news release Tuesday.

ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project Deputy Director Brigitte Amiri, attorney for the plaintiff identifed only as Jane Doe, said in the release, “We encourage others in Kentucky who are currently pregnant and seeking abortion to reach out to us if they are interested in joining the case—call or text us at (617) 297-7012. We will do everything we can to restore abortion access in Kentucky.”

The lawsuit was filed Friday in state court at Louisville. It alleges that Kentucky's near-total abortion ban of abortion violates privacy and self-determination rights that the state constitution gives the plaintiff and other persons similarly situated, qualifying the case for class-action status.

"Jane Doe sought an abortion in Kentucky, and when she could not get one, she bravely came forward to challenge the state’s abortion ban," Amiri said. "Although she decided to have an abortion, the government denied her the freedom to control her body. Countless Kentuckians face the same harm every day as the result of the abortion ban."

Earlier this year, the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to act against the ban and another outlawing abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy, saying the abortion-clinic plaintiffs didn't have the right to sue on behalf of women, leaving unresolved the constitutional questions about abortion in Kentucky.

The ACLU, Planned Parenthood and other activists said Friday that they had been searching for a plaintiff ever since that February ruling.

The near-total ban was passed in 2019 and took effect when Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. It bans abortions except when carried out to save the life of the patient or to prevent disabling injury. It does not include exceptions for cases of rape or incest, which Gov. Andy Beshear used to his advantage in his re-election campaign.

Kentucky voters last year rejected a ballot measure that would have denied any constitutional protections for abortion, but abortion-rights supporters made no inroads in the Republican-controlled legislature's 2023 session in chipping away at the state's anti-abortion laws.

Unidentified pregnant woman in Ky. sues for right to get abortion

Abortion-rights supporters chanted April 13 on the second floor of the
state Capitol, where the state Supreme Court meets, one floor below
the legislature. (Associated Press Photo by Bruce Schreiner)

By Bruce Schreiner & Kimberlee Kruesi

Associated Press

A pregnant woman in Kentucky filed a lawsuit Friday demanding the right to an abortion, the second legal challenge in days to sweeping abortion bans that have taken hold in more than a dozen U.S. states since Roe v. Wade was overturned last summer.

The suit, in state court in Louisville, says Kentucky's near-total ban of abortion violates the plaintiff's rights to privacy and self-determination under the state constitution.The plaintiff, identified as Jane Doe, is about eight weeks pregnant and wants to have an abortion in Kentucky but cannot legally do so because of the state's ban, the suit said. She is seeking class-action status to include other Kentuckians who are or will become pregnant and want to have an abortion.

“I am a proud Kentuckian and I love the life my family and I have here, but I’m angry that now that I’m pregnant and do not want to be,” the plaintiff said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups backing her challenge. “The government is interfering in my private matters and blocking me from having an abortion. This is my decision, not the government or any other person’s."

State Attorney General Daniel Cameron's office said it is reviewing the suit but offered no other comments. Cameron, a Republican who lost last month's race for governor to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, has defended the state's anti-abortion laws in other court proceedings.

The lawsuit came a day after a judge in Texas gave a pregnant woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis permission to get an abortion. The restraining order issued Thursday stopped Texas from enforcing the state’s ban on the mother of two, who is 20 weeks pregnant. Late Friday, the court stayed the ruling, pending closer consideraiton of the case. UPDATE, Dec. 11: The woman, citing the delay, said she was leaving Texas to get an abortion in another state.

Unlike the Texas case, little is known about the Kentucky plaintiff or her pregnancy. Legal challenges across the nation have largely highlighted stories from women who were denied abortions while facing harrowing pregnancy complications. But in Kentucky, the plaintiff's attorneys insisted they would fiercely protect their client's privacy, stressing that Jane Doe believes “everyone should have the right to make decisions privately and make decisions for their own families,” said Amber Duke, the ACLU of Kentucky's executive director.

Earlier this year, the Kentucky Supreme Court refused to halt the state's near-total abortion ban and another outlawing abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy. The justices focused on a narrow legal issue, saying an abortion clinic didn't have the right to sue on behalf of women, but didn’t resolve larger constitutional questions about whether access to abortion should be legal in the Bluegrass State.

The ACLU, Planned Parenthood and other activists say they've been searching for a plaintiff ever since that February ruling. The suit filed Friday marks the launch of their new assault against the state's abortion bans.

“These bans have harmed countless Kentuckians since going into effect last year, and we are relieved to be back in court to try to restore abortion access in Kentucky,” Brigitte Amiri, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, said in the news release.

The lawsuit says Kentucky women are suffering “medical, constitutional and irreparable harm” by being denied the right to obtain abortions.

“Abortion is a critical component of reproductive healthcare and crucial to the ability of Kentuckians to control their lives,” the suit says. “Whether to take on the health risks and responsibilities of pregnancy and parenting is a personal and consequential decision that must be left to the individual to determine for herself without governmental interference.”

Kentucky voters last year rejected a ballot measure that would have denied any constitutional protections for abortion, but abortion-rights supporters have made no inroads in the Republican-controlled legislature in chipping away at the state's anti-abortion laws.

The legal challenge revolves around Kentucky’s near-total trigger law ban and a separate six-week ban — both passed by Republican lawmakers. The trigger law was passed in 2019 and took effect when Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. It bans abortions except when carried out to save the life of the patient or to prevent disabling injury. It does not include exceptions for cases of rape or incest, which Beshear used to his advantage in the race with Cameron.

Opioid panel leader cites support for government-funded research into psychedelic drug; members have robust discussion of idea

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

The commission that spends the state's half of opioid settlements with drug makers, distributors and retailers agreed Tuesday to simplify its grant application process, then had a robust discussion about its chair's proposal to spend up to $42 million on clinical trials that could lead to legalization of the psychedelic drug ibogaine for treatment of opioid-use disorder.

Commission Chair Bryan Hubbard

Bryan Hubbard, the commission's chair and executive director, said the application process should be simplified to help organizations that don't have the money to hire grant writers or legal counsel, and to ensure that grant applications directly target opioid-use disorder or any co-occurring substance-use disorder or mental-health issue, as required by state regulation.

The portal to submit an application to the Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission will reopen Jan. 1 and stay open through March, a much shorter period than before. The application review process will not be shortened. 

"By us shortening the application window from what was essentially 10 months to three," Hubbard said, "we give ourselves the opportunity to not be shooting at a moving target and to have the full universe of grant proposals so that we can strategically evaluate, review and put together the sort of infrastructure that the commission is charged with delivering regionally and based on areas of need." The other half of the state's settlement money is spent by cities and counties.

Pros and cons of ibogaine

The commission's discussion about ibogaine came after Hubbard shared materials from organizations lauding the plan to help fund research into the drug, which comes from the African iboga plant.

The first was a resolution from the National Executive Committee of the American Legion urging Congress to fund research of psychedelics, including ibogaione, as therapies for veterans' health.

Hubbard also read a letter from Robert Malenka, Pritzker Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. He praised Kentucky's plan for "innovative approaches to the treatment of opioid use disorder" and offered his assistance to help with the clinical trials. 

"While current treatments for opioid-use disorder need to be made more available, there is a need for more efficacious treatments and the study of psychedelics such as ibogaine, its therapeutic treatments is an exciting area that deserves rigorous, thoughtful and ethical research," Hubbard read from Malenka's letter, saying his lab is studying the efficacy of psychedelics and treatment models for opioid addiction and consults with companies that are pursuing psychedelics as potential therapies.

Hubbard read an email from Bennett Nemser, chief program officer for the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, who said it is "one of the largest nonprofit partners in the psychedelic research space." According to Hubbard, Nemser lauded Kentucky's "courageous spirit towards driving innovation in this arena" with public-private partnerships, and offerred to help start one.

Hubbard also read from a letter submitted by Genevive Jurvetson, co-founder of The Jurvetson Foundation, which says it is "Exploring moonshots in mental health, ending Veteran suicide." According to Hubbard, she said "Our steadfast belief is that psychedelic therapies present some of the most potent tools for addressing our mental-health crisis.

According to Hubbard, Jurvetson said the foundation supported Dr. Nolan Williams' ibogaine research at Stanford University, which is awaiting publication, presumably in a peer-reviewed journal. Hubbard told the panel that Williams had agreed to discuss his findings with the group after they are published. 

Hubbard noted that on Oct. 31 the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services issued a notice of funding opportunity for research on psychedelics including ibogaine as treatment for substance-use disorder, which says "There is an urgent need to develop novel treatments for SUD in light of the escalating rates of substance use, addiction, and overdose."

State Health Secretary Eric Friedlander said he was thrilled to see a discussion about outside entities supporting funding of such research, and that they also want to explore the use of other psychedelics.

Friedlander works for Gov. Andy Beshear, who has criticized Hubbard's plan, saying it would shortchange Kentucky anti-drug organziations. Hubbard works for Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who lost the governor's race to Beshear and will be succeeded by fellow Republican Russell Coleman.

Alluding to Beshear's criticism, commission member Jason Roop said the commission could fund along with "the great organizations in Kentucky that are already doing great work on this front. . . . We'll continue to support efforts. But we also want to explore this medication, this plant, because what it does, the mechanism, it says it right here, it does something different than other medications do. It encourages, it fosters, and apparently initiates a path of self-discovery, which can bring about healing, optimism, dignity, self-respect, and hope for the recovery journey." 

Roop, a pastor who describes himself as "a person in recovery," was referring to the spiritual awareness that some ibogaine users have reported.

Other commission members supported the idea. Vic Brown, who represents law enforcement, said that at a time when we continue to lose 100,000 people a year nationwide from drug overdoses, it's time to try something different. "We haven't found a solution to curtail that number in any way," he said. "We as a commission have a unique opportunity in history to try something new . . . "

Commission member Von Purdy said she wanted to ensure that if they fund the proposal, the drug would be available to everyone. Hubbard assured her that his draft proposal presented at the last meeting would make this a requirement. The principal objection to ibogaine is the risk it poses to the heart, which critics say would require hospital-based treatment that few people could afford.

Commission member Karen Butcher, whose son died of an opioid overdose, said, "If all fears were addressed, why wouldn't we, as I've said before,  want to do something groundbreaking and promising because of the escalation of this disease. . . . What is the opposition to doing something that's going to save lives, as opposed to the same-old, same-old that we've been doing, and we keep losing lives." 

Rep. Danny Bentley

The chief dissenter at the meeting was state Rep. Danny Bentley, R-Russell, a pharmacist and a non-voting member of the commission. He called ibogaine "false hope for the people of Kentucky," saying "It will take $2 billion and 10 years to get that product on the market."

Bentley said the drug's effect on the heart will put it in a "black box," meaning it will have one of the highest safety-related warnings assigned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 

Bentley also noted that Williams' research at Stanford was not a "double-blind" study, which is the gold standard for clinical trials, but a pre-and post-observational study. Hubbard encouraged Bentley to take that up with Williams when he comes to present his findings.

Bentley cautioned the commission to be aware of who is funding ibogaine research. Citing his education as a pharmacist, he said he was taught that "If the people paying for the research own the company and the drug, it was invalid from the get-go."

"There is some evidence that one dose of ibogaine is an effective treatment for patients with opioid-use disorder," Bentley said, creating the notion that "As a one-and-done drug, this will eliminate the need for chronic treatment for opioid-use disorder. Unfortunately, unfortunately, the evidence is to support these claims are not only weak, but also heavily biased." 

As an example, he pointed to Dr. Deborah Mash, founder and CEO of DemeRx, a company focused on developing ibogaine for addiction treatment, who spoke at the commission's public hearing in July.

"All her research and all her statements should be invalid," Bentley said.  "Very few research studies have been done to evaluate the effectiveness of ibogaine as a treatment for opioid use disorder. Ibogaine may have some promise, and it could be further studied through smaller, single-site trials and collaboration with medical schools or product-research organizations, in partnership with drug-development companies that make ibogaine."

Using a common term for the pharmaceutical industry, which is paying most of the settlement funds that the commission will spend, Bentley said, "We have taken money from Pharma to help the people of the state of Kentucky, and now we're getting ready to give it right back to Pharma."

 

Patricia Freeman of the University of Kentucky asked Hubbard to see that future guests of the commission provide information about who paid for their travel expenses. Hubbard said the state could ask for this information, but not require it. He said the state had not paid any such expenses. 

The commission's next business meeting was rescheduled for Dec. 13.

Beshear win pressures legislature to put exceptions for rape and incest, topic of impactful TV ad, into state's near-total abortion ban

Hadley Duvall, a Midway University senior, appeared in a TV commercial for Gov. Andy Beshear.

By Deborah Yetter

Kentucky Lantern

Standing before cheering supporters on election night, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear wrapped up his re-election celebration with a round of thanks.

“First to my parents,” he said, embracing Jane and Steve Beshear — his father himself a former, two-term governor.

The Democratic incumbent, who defeated Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron by 5 percentage points, next thanked his wife, Britainy and their children, Will and Lila.

Then Beshear thanked a young woman in the crowd who appeared in a television ad that became the flashpoint of his campaign — describing her childhood rape and pregnancy and blasting Cameron for his support of Kentucky’s near-total ban on abortion.

“To tell a 12-year-old girl she must have the baby of the stepfather who raped her is unthinkable,” Hadley Duvall sayid in the ad.

“Hadley is here tonight,” Beshear said of the 21-year-old Midway University senior from Owensboro who appeared in what political observers say was a devastatingly effective ad. “Because of her, this commonwealth is going to be a better place and people are going to reach out for the help they need. Thank you, Hadley.”

Abortion remains essentially illegal in Kentucky under a pair of laws enacted by the Republican-controlled General Assembly that provide no exceptions for pregnancies from rape or incest — laws Cameron, as attorney general, has defended.

The laws took effect after the U.S. Supreme Court last year struck down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, establishing abortion as a constitutional right.

The Republican supermajority in the state legislature has shown little interested in changing Kentucky’s laws, even to add exemptions for rape or incest. But supporters of abortion rights are hopeful that Beshear’s reelection in a deep red state marks a turning point in attitudes about access to abortion as well as an awakening among voters about the real-life impact of laws that ban it.

“I think it is very obvious that abortion has become an issue that people are not afraid to talk about any longer and that certainly does drive people to the polls,” said Angela Cooper, communications director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.

Tamarra Wieder, state director for Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates Kentucky, noted that the Nov. 7 re-election of Beshear, a supporter of abortion rights, came the same day that voters in Ohio, also a conservative state, approved a ballot measure establishing a state constitutional right to abortion.

And Beshear’s win comes one year after Kentucky voters rejected a ballot measure that would have declared Kentucky’s constitution creates no right to abortion. About 52% of the state’s voters opposed the measure — about the same share of voters who elected Beshear to a second term, Wieder said.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that those numbers are the same,” Wieder said. “Abortion is a winning issue.”

Political observers say it’s likely Beshear would have won for other reasons — his overall popularity, his advantage as the incumbent, and his management of crises in his first term including the Covid-19 pandemic and devastating tornadoes and deadly flooding.

But the abortion issue — in particular, the ad featuring Duvall — deepened the contrast between Beshear and Cameron.

While Beshear has said he supports abortion access previously conferred by Roe v. Wade, as he ran for re-election he stressed that the law contains no exemptions for rape or incest, calling it “cruel.”

Cameron, who has defended Kentucky’s laws, was left struggling to explain his stance, giving conflicting responses to the issues raised in the ad. And that worked to Beshear’s benefit, said Danny Briscoe, a long-time Democratic consultant from Louisville.

“You can’t say she won the campaign for him but you can say she played an awfully valuable role,” Briscoe said of Duvall. “They put the ball in Cameron’s court and he never really got rid of it.”

UPDATE, Nov. 13: Polls indicated the ad would be the most effecitve in moving voters from Cameron to Beshear, campaign manager Eric Hyers told Politico: “It cemented and locked in where the race was and made it so that it was going to be very, very difficult — if not impossible — for him to get to a majority because people were so repulsed.” He also said voters who moved the most were older Republican, non-college educated men in rural areas, Madison Fernandez reports.

Tres Watson, a GOP campaign consultant, said Republicans who once confidently campaigned on ending abortion are in an awkward spot now that it is effectively banned in 14 states and restricted in 11 more.

“I think it’s a new reality,” said Watson, a co-host of the Kentucky Politics Weekly podcast. “I don’t think the general public has changed. Who’s on the offense and who’s on the defense have changed.”

Most Americans oppose the decision overturning Roe v. Wade and continue to support at least some measure of access to abortion, according to a Marist College poll in April.

Addia Wuchner, executive director of Kentucky Right to Life, which endorsed Cameron through its Victory PAC as “an unwavering defender of Kentucky’s pro-life laws,” noted that Republicans won the other five statewide constitutional offices on the Nov. 7 ballot were won by Republicans and all were endorsed by Right to Life, including Russell Coleman, who will replace Cameron as attorney general.

As for the outcome of the governor’s race in Kentucky, Wuchner said, “We’re still trying to evaluate everything.

Whether the Kentucky General Assembly will consider adding exemptions to the state’s stringent abortion laws remains in question.

Two laws are in in effect: A “trigger law” that banned all abortions once Roe v. Wade was overturned and another that bans abortions after six weeks, before many women realize they are pregnant. Neither law has exemptions for rape or incest and allow abortion only in rare instances to save the life or prevent disabling injury of a pregnant patient.

Beshear called on lawmakers the day after the election to add exceptions for rape or incest, calling Kentucky’s laws among the “most extreme” in the nation.

Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, filed such a measure only to have it ignored by lawmakers in the 2023 legislative session. “I think our people believe in the exemptions,” he said. “And at some point, we’re representatives of the people, and we have to do what their demands are.”

However, “Exceptions for rape and incest are the minimum,” said the ACLU’s Cooper. “It’s really not enough.” Wieder, with Planned Parenthood, agrees.

She said Planned Parenthood will continue work to educate voters that the decision now rests with state lawmakers. “People think the bans are national,” Wieder said. “They don’t realize it’s their local leaders.”

Poll shows Beshear, Cameron in dead heat; most voters say they oppose current abortion law that lacks rape and incest exceptions

Emerson College graph adapted by Kentucky Health News; click to enlarge

By Al Cross
Kentucky
Health News 

From the start, the X factor in the Kentucky governor’s race has been former president Donald Trump: Would his endorsement propel Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron past Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, who has had high approval ratings and led in every public poll? Now a poll taken in the last four days indicates strongly that it could.

The survey, taken by Emerson College of Massachusetts, shows Beshear and Cameron in a dead heat, with 46.9 percent for each candidate and 3.9 percent undecided. Another 2.3 percent said they would vote for someone else, which would require write-in voting, because no other gubernatorial slate is on the ballot. Adding undecided voters who said they were leaning one way or another, Cameron leads, 49.3% to 48.4%. The poll has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The result differs strikingly from an Emerson poll taken at the start of October, which showed Beshear with 49% and Cameron with 33%. But that poll was of registered voters, while this one was of 1,000 Kentuckians who said they were very likely to vote or had already voted. Early voting began Thursday, the last day of the poll, and about 2% of votes in statewide races are typically cast by absentee ballots.

Even with this poll, the big question about the election remains which voters will actually turn out to vote. In response to a question from Kentucky Health News, Emerson said it called about 250,000 people, texted about 15,000, emailed about 15,000 and had an online panel of voters aged 18 to 29. 

The poll started Monday, Oct. 30, and ended Thursday, Nov. 2. At midday Tuesday, the Cameron campaign sent Trump supporters a video endorsement of Cameron by the former president. Before that, TV advertising by Cameron and groups supporting him increasingly featured the endorsement, which Cameron obtained months before the Republican primary election.

Spencer Kimball, director of the poll, said in a press release that Cameron appears to have gained ground by consolidating support from Republicans who supported Trump in 2020. In the October poll, 54% of Trump supporters supported Cameron; in the latest survey, it was 79%.

The poll also found a similar increase for Cameron among voters aged 50 to 69; 58% of them said they support Cameron; in the October poll, he was getting only 36% of their votes. Beshear’s share dropped to 40% from 49%.

The poll also asked voters if they “support or oppose Kentucky’s current laws that ban abortion in nearly all cases, with no exception for rape or incest.” Beshear has criticized Cameron for opposing such exceptions and said the overturned Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision was generally correct.
The poll found that 55% of likely voters oppose Kentucky's law and only 28% support it, with 17% unsure.

“Majorities of both men and women voters oppose the abortion law,” Kimball said. “Fifty-two percent of men and 58% of women voters oppose the laws, while support is relatively similar: 30% of male voters and 28% of women voters support the abortion laws.”

Three-quarters of Democrats said they oppose the law, and 47% of independents said likewise. Among, Republicans, 42% said they support it, while 37% said they opposed, and 21% were unsure. Generally, the younger the voter, the more likely they were to oppose the law.

The poll was sponsored by WDKY-TV, Fox 56, in Lexington. It was conducted mainly by automated, recorded calls to landlines. About 10% of responses came via texts to and from cell phones. About 34% came from an online panel of voters provided by Centiment Data and 1.6% came from emails provided by Aristotle, the Emerson press release said.

Candidates for governor fuss over credit for opioid settlements

Gov. Andy Beshear and Attorney General Daniel Cameron in
December 2019, after Beshear appointed Cameron to fill his
unexpired term as AG (Associated Press photo by Bruce Schreiner)

By Aneri Pattani
KFF Health News

Opioid settlement cash is not inherently political. It’s not the result of a law passed by Congress nor an edit to the state budget. It’s not taxpayer money. Rather, it’s coming from health-care companies that were sued for fueling the opioid crisis with prescription painkillers.

But like most dollars meant to address public health crises, settlement cash has nonetheless turned into a political issue.

Gubernatorial candidates in Kentucky and other states are clashing over bragging rights for the funds — which total more than $50 billion and are being distributed to state and local governments over nearly two decades. Kentucky's share of the pie is $842 million.

Among the candidates are curremt or former attorneys general who pursued the lawsuits that produced the payouts. And they’re eager to remind the public who brought home the bacon.

“Scoring money for your constituency almost always plays well,” said Stephen Voss, an associate professor of political science at the University of Kentucky. It “is a lot more compelling and unifying a political argument than taking a position on something like abortion,” for which you risk alienating someone no matter what you say.”

Attorney General Daniel Cameron, the Republican candidate for governor, wants sole credit for the hundreds of millions of dollars his state is receiving to fight the opioid epidemic. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, he wrote that his opponent, former attorney general and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear, “filed a lot of lawsuits during his time [in] office, but in this race, there is only one person who has actually delivered dollars to fight the opioid epidemic, and it’s not him.”

Beshear filed nine opioid lawsuits during his tenure as attorney general, several of which led to the current payouts. At a January news conference, Beshear defended his role: “That’s where these dollars are coming from — cases that I filed, and I personally argued many of them in court.”

Christine Minhee, founder of OpioidSettlementTracker.com, who is closely following how attorneys general handle opioid-settlement money, said voters likely don’t know that the settlements are national deals crafted by a coalition of attorneys general and private lawyers. So when one candidate claims credit for the money, his constituents may believe “he’s the sole hero in all of this.”

Candidates in other states are touting their settlement credentials, too. North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat, lists securing opioid settlement funds at the top of the “accomplishments” section of his 2024 gubernatorial campaign website. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican gubernatorial candidate for 2024, has repeatedly boasted of securing the “highest per capita settlements in the nation” in news conferences and on social media and his campaign website.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Republican who was recently elected governor, ran on a tough-on-crime platform, with endorsements from sheriffs and prosecutors. As attorney general, he led negotiations on dividing opioid settlement funds within the state, resulting in an agreement to send 80% to parish governments and 20% to sheriffs’ departments — the largest direct allocation to law enforcement in the nation.

In Kentucky, half the settlement money is being distributed among cities and counties, and the other half is controlled by the Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission, staffed by Cameron's office.

It’s a common joke that AG stands for “aspiring governor,” and officials in that role often use big legal cases to advance their political careers. Research shows that attorneys general who participate in multistate litigation — like that which led to the opioid settlements and the tobacco settlement before it — are more likely to run for governor or senator.

But for some advocates and people personally affected by the opioid epidemic, this injection of politics raises concerns about how settlement dollars are being spent, who is making the decisions, and whether the money will truly address the public health crisis. Last year, more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses.

Average people “don’t really care about the bragging rights as much as they care about the ability to use that funding to improve and save lives,” said Shameka Parrish-Wright, director of Vocies of Community Activists and Leaders (VOCAL-KY), a Louisville-based advocacy group that champions investments in housing and health care.

“What I see in my state is a lot of press conferences and news pieces,” said Parrish-Wright, a Democrat who is active in local politics. “But what plays out doesn’t get to the people” — especially those deeply affected by addiction.

For example, when Beshear celebrated a decrease in the state’s overdose deaths, his announcement overlooked the increasing deaths among Black Kentuckians, Parrish-Wright said.

And when the Cameron aide who chairs the opioid commission proposed that 5% of settlement funds be used to research ibogaine — an illegal psychedelic drug that has shown potential to treat addiction — to help get it approved by the Food and Drug Administration, Parrish-Wright said her first thought was “most poor people can’t afford that.” A recent witness before the commission said the FDA is unlikely to approve it, and even iof it did, treatment should occur only in hospitals because of the risk of heart damage.

The ibogaine announcement caused additional controversy. It’s an experimental drug, and, if approved, the $42 million allocation would be the single-largest investment from the commission. The Daily Beast reported that a billionaire Republican donor backing Cameron’s gubernatorial campaign stands to reap massive profits from the drug’s development.

Neither Cameron’s office nor his campaign responded to requests for comment for this story.

Beshear’s office declined an interview request but referred KFF Health News to his previous public statements, in which he criticized the potential investment in ibogaine. He has suggested that Cameron, whose campaign has emphasized support for police, is not putting his money where his mouth is.

“If you only provide $1 million to law enforcement and 42 [million] to pharma, it doesn’t seem like you’re backing the blue. It seems like you’re backing Big Pharma,” Beshear said at a May news conference.

Minhee, founder of OpioidSettlementTracker.com, said she’s concerned that mixing politics with settlement funds could result in ineffective investments nationwide.

“If some of this money is going to be politicized to advance careers of attorneys general who support the war on drugs, then that is literally using monies won by death to feed into more death,” she said.

Parrish-Wright said she worries that candidates — and some voters — will forget about the significance of the money once ballots are cast. “We cannot let it fade after the election cycle,” she said.

Her solution depends in part on politics. She’s on the ballot herself Nov. 7, for a seat on Louisville’s Metro Council. If she wins, she said, she intends to keep the settlement in the public conversation.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent source of health policy research, polling and journalism.

Kentucky Health Commissioner Steven Stack is the new president of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials

Gov. Andy Beshear listened as Dr. Steven Stack spoke during
a pandemic press briefing. (Photo by Matt Stone, Courier Journal)

Dr. Steven J. Stack, commissioner of the state Department for Public Health, is the new president of the the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Stack has been state health commissioner since February 2020, when he was appointed by Gov. Andy Beshear. The next month, the Covid-19 pandemic hit, starting a controversial era for public health.

“During the past few years, I have gained invaluable insight as an ASTHO member,” Stack said in a news release from the organization. “I’m honored to step into the role of president at this pivotal period in public health to further ASTHO's vision of advancing health equity and optimal health for all.”

Beshear, a Democrat, is running for a second term in the Nov. 7 election. If he loses, and Republican Daniel Cameron appoints a new health commissioner, Stack would also lose his position as ASTHO president. 

Stack has an MBA degree and "expertise in emergency department and hospital management, health system reform, physician licensure and regulation, and non-profit organization leadership," the news release says, noting that he was the youngest president of the American Medical Association.

He said in the release, “As president, I am committed to supporting ASTHO’s mission in partnership with other state health officials as we seek to strengthen public health workforce and infrastructure across the nation to ensure that every American can reach their full human potential.”

Stack played a central role in Beshear's handling of the pandemic. ASTHO CEO Michael Fraser said of Stack, “He has led Kentucky diligently as commissioner, and we know he will do the same for ASTHO. His dedication to innovation and improving public health will be integral in this upcoming year.”

Before becoming AMA president and stat health commissioner, Stack was a board member and secretary for the Washington-based eHealth Initiative, an association dedicated to innovation and solutions in health care through implementation of health technology, the release said.

Stack, an Ohio native, studied at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., before completing medical school and an emergency-medicine residency at Ohio State. He began his clinical practice in Memphis before moving with his wife and daughter to Lexington.

Beshear defends pandemic work as Cameron cites learning loss, makes false claim about founder of Planned Parenthood

Candidates' supporters at KET Monday night (Kentucky Lantern photo by Matthew Mueller)

By Al Cross
Kentucky Health News

In their next-to-last debate before the Nov. 7 election, Gov. Andy Beshear defended his response to the Covid-19 pandemic against criticism from Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron. Appearing for an hour on KET, the candidates also debated each other's positions on abortion, and Cameron made  a false claim about the founder of Planned Parenthood.

Moderator Renee Shaw opened the "Kentucky Tonight" forum by asking Cameron how he would have handled the pandemic that hit the state in March 2020. He said he would have "done like other red-state governors" and tried to get businesses "open as quickly as possible."

Asked if he would have shut down schools at any point, he did not say, but said "I wouldn't have infringed on your constitutional rights." That was a reference to court decisions, some successfully sought by Cameron, that said a few of Beshear's state-of-emergency restrictions went too far.

Beshear was asked if he had any misgivings about the strength and duration of his restrictions, specifically the application on Easter Sunday of his ban on mass indoor gatherings.

He did not address that specific point, but said, "This is about leadership. I showed people during the pandemic I was willing to make the hard decisions, even if it cost me. I put politics out the window, and I made the best decisions I could to save as many lives as possible.”

Asked if he would do it all over again the same way, Beshear didn't answer directly, but said "I believe we made the best decision we did with the information we had," and said he was the first governor to prioiritized teachers for immunizations when vaccines for Covid-19 became available.

Cameron claimed that Beshear "said he had no regrets," and said he would not admit regret "because of pride."

Noting repeatedly that Beshear closed schools, Cameron said "Your kids are behind because of this short-sighted decision," and noted his "catch-up plan" to help them.

Beshear, asked if he has a strategy for that, said he does, but tried to spread blame to the Republican-controlled legislature: "This is something that was happening before the pandemic, primarly because of not enough educators," due to low pay causing teacher shortages.

He also shifted blame when asked if he would take responsibility for the huge backlog in unemployment claims during the pandemic. He noted the downsizing of the agency under his GOP predecessor and said "If we'd had the resources that were there in the last administraton we could have done much better."

Abortion

Cameron has said that if the legislature sent him a bill to put rape and incest exceptions into the state's abortion ban, he would sign it. Asked to say "yes or no" if he personally favors such exceptions, he repeatedly declined to answer, and made a false claim about the founder of Planned Parenthood.

Cameron, an African American, noted the organization's strong support of Beshear, and said its founder, Margaret Sanger, favored the extermination of his race. This claim has been made and debunked several times, but Cameron said Sanger "said I didn't deserve to live." UPDATE, Oct. 25: In a debate Tuesday night, Cameron put it another way: "Margaret Sanger wanted to destroy the Black community," and said 79% of abortion clinics are in Black neighborhoods. 

Sanger believed in eugenics, which taught white superiority and discouraged reproduction of races and ethnicities it deemed inferior. In 1939 she started a project to expand birth-control services for African Americans in the South. In a letter, she told a director of the program that it should hire African American doctors and ministers to gain trust in Black communities because “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population ...”

That was “inartfully written” but was “frequently taken out of context to suggest Sanger was seeking to exterminate blacks,” The Washington Post reported in 2015. The Reuters news service said in a fact check last year, "Sanger’s concern was to avoid a suspicion that the program’s objective was to stop Black people having babies, which having white people in charge could create."

Sanger's full quote was, “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.”

During the debate on abortion, Shaw noted that Cameron and 18 other attorneys general signed a letter in June opposing a proposed federal privacy rule that would keep state officials from getting information on any reproductive health-care services that in-state residents obtained outside the state, and asked if he wants to criminalize women seeking abortions.

"Absolutely not," Cameron replied, returning to the attack: "Andy Beshear is trying to gaslight you tonight. . . . He wants no limits on abortion." Not so, Beshear said.

Asked if a woman be allowed to terminate a pregnancy at any point, Beshear said his long-held position is that "I am in favor of reasonable restrictions on abortion, especially late-term abortions. . . . He signed a letter saying that he should be able to come after your medical record if you go out of state for care."

On another hot-button social issue, Beshear was asked about an early campaign commercial in which he said that transgender surgeries are not performed on minors in Kentucky. A letter from UK HealthCare, written in March but not released by state Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, until August, said UK had “a small number of non-genital gender reassignment surgeries on minors, such as mastectomies for older adolescents.”

Shaw asked Beshear if he knew that when he made the ad. He said, "No, I didn't know."

Numerous pro-Cameron commercials have used the ad and the letter to argue that Beshear was lying. Immediately after Beshear answered, Cameron claimed, "The governor just told you a lie," because Beshear vetoed this year's Senate Bill 150, which banned transition surgeries for minors after the legislature overrode the veto.

Beshear said the bill "had a lot more in it" than the ban, but "Our parents should be able to make complicated medical decisions, rather than the government . . . This was all passed just for political points."

The candidates' final debate is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET Tuesday on Lexington's WKYT-TV and on sister Gray Television stations in Evansville, Ind., and Bowling Green.

In debate, Cameron slams Beshear's handling of pandemic; governor says 'I'd rather save lives than win re-election'

Atty. Gen. Daniel Cameron and Gov. Andy Beshear debated Saturday night. (WLKY image via Ky. Lantern)

By McKenna Horsley
Kentucky Lantern

During a debate Saturday night, the candidates for governor were asked if the state should have an ongoing plan for a future pandemic, like the Covid-19 pandemic that began in 2020, as well as what they thought were successes and failures in the response to the coronavirus.

Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who answered the question first, criticized Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear for closing schools, businesses and churches during the pandemic. Cameron has made similar comments on the campaign trail and in press conferences.

“What Andy Beshear did was wrong. I will respect your constitutional rights. I will look out for our most vulnerable populations,” Cameron said. “But at the end of the day, I will make sure that we respect you as a citizen and your constitutional rights.”

Beshear called the pandemic “the challenge of our lifetime” and noted that it killed 18,000 Kentuckians. He also praised health-care workers who worked during the pandemic and added that it was “a slap in the face of the heroism that they showed” for Cameron to refuse “to act like this pandemic was as deadly as it was.”

“I made decisions to save lives,” Beshear said. “It’s clear this attorney general would have played politics. That would have caused more death, more destruction. I’d rather save lives than win re-election.”

Saturday’s debate was hosted by the League of Women Voters of Louisville and TV station WLKY. During a couple of tense moments, Beshear directly asked Cameron to answer questions about abortion.

Cameron said last month that he would sign legislation adding exceptions in cases of rape and incest to Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban if the General Assembly passed it. However, he has not directly said if he personally supports those exceptions and continues to call himself the “pro-life candidate.”

I a rebuttal, Beshear said, “I got a few seconds left. So, General Cameron, will you look at the camera and say, ‘I support exceptions for rape and incest?’”

Cameron replied, “I’ve already said that I will sign the exceptions if they are brought to my desk. At the end of the day, this governor wants more abortions. There is no difference between him and Joe Biden on this issue.”

The next gubernatorial debate, hosted by KET, is set for 8 p.m. ET Monday. followed by the candidates' last debate at 7 p.m. ET Tuesday, hosted by Lexington's WKYT-TV.

Beshear’s running mate, Lt. Gov. ​Jacqueline Coleman, and Cameron’s running mate, state Sen. Robby Mills of Henderson, will face each other in a KET debate on Oct. 30. Voting concludes Nov. 7.

This story was excerpted from a longer one. For the original, go here.