Vivek Ramaswamy’s attacks on former Ohio health director Amy Acton are stirring a furious backlash, with critics accusing the Republican candidate of rewriting the darkest days of the COVID crisis while celebrating government cuts that could leave communities exposed.
The uproar followed a Columbus Dispatch letter arguing that Ramaswamy’s campaign was banking on “COVID amnesia.” The writer defended Acton’s pandemic record, noting that her decisions were made with the support of Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s administration as hospitals filled, treatments remained limited, and thousands of Americans died each day.
But the sharpest reaction came from Ohioans over on the local subreddit.
“He cuts government down and we all suffer the consequences,” one Reddit commenter wrote, pointing to reported cuts affecting federal disease tracking. Another warned that when public-health surveillance disappears, “we don’t know how to stay safe.”
The thread quickly became a referendum on what critics see as Ramaswamy’s governing philosophy: slash first, celebrate loudly and leave ordinary people to deal with the fallout.
Commenters repeatedly referenced his appearance alongside Elon Musk during the federal cost-cutting push associated with DOGE. The original letter accused the pair of “gloating” after funding was halted for USAID, an agency supporting health, nutrition and humanitarian programs overseas. The letter further cited an estimate attributed to Harvard researchers linking such cuts to extensive deaths from disease and malnutrition, though that figure was disputed within the Reddit discussion and could not be independently verified for this article.
“The Ad Writes Itself”
For many commenters, the political contrast was brutally simple. Acton, a physician and public-health official, became the face of Ohio’s early pandemic response. Ramaswamy, they argued, has made shrinking public institutions a central selling point.
“His brief experience in government so far has been deciding that governmental departments that serve Americans aren’t important,” one user wrote. “He’s leaving all Ohioans exposed to a preventable disease.”
Others focused on rural hospitals, health-care access and emergency preparedness. “Rural Ohio was already suffering,” one commenter said, predicting that more residents could lose access to doctors and medical facilities.
The anger also centered on advertisements portraying Acton as someone who abandoned Ohio. Reddit users pushed back that the slogan ignores the threats and harassment directed at Acton and her family during the pandemic. One commenter called that omission “the worst” part of the campaign’s message.
There was also anxiety that Ramaswamy could bring aggressive cost-cutting to Columbus. A commenter asked whether Ohio’s safety nets could survive another round of reductions after federal support had already been weakened.
The Reddit verdict was not subtle. “The ad writes itself,” one Ohioan declared.
Behind the mockery was a serious fear: that public health is easiest to dismiss when it works, and hardest to rebuild once the next crisis arrives.
