Both chambers of the Ohio General Assembly are plodding forward on legislation to waive training requirements to carry a concealed weapon.
While current law allows state residents to openly carry a weapon, it only allows those 21-and-up to obtain a concealed carry permit after completing an 8-hour training course and passing a background check.
House Bill 227 and Senate Bill 215, which contain some important differences, would waive these permitting requirements, including the training
The effort, if successful, would continue Ohio’s steady relaxing of its gun laws over the last 20 years, which has included launching the concealed carry program in 2004 that required 12 hours of training; passing “pre-emption” legislation in 2006 which blocks cities from enacting gun laws stricter than those at the state level; and removing the duty to retreat (passing “stand your ground”) in 2020, which removed the requirement for a person to seek retreat before responding to a perceived attack with deadly force.
On Thursday, the House Government Oversight Committee held its fourth hearing on the permitless concealed carry legislation.
Over several hours, members of Moms Demand Action, an anti-gun violence advocacy group, made their case against the bill. They argued it will inevitably increase rates of gun violence. The Ohio Attorney General’s Office reports roughly 1,200 concealed carry applications are denied each year for reasons set in code, like criminal histories, civil or temporary protective orders, or others.
What, they asked, will happen to those applicants if there’s no more licensing process?
“It allows guns in the pockets of lowlifes,” said Sieglinde Martin, an MDA member.
Micaela Deming, an attorney with the Ohio Domestic Violence Network, said domestic violence misdemeanor convictions and protective orders are the second highest reason that would-be gun owners fail background checks. Waiving the permitting requirements, she said, would mean the loss of a key screening mechanism to remove guns from these domestic offenders.
Gun lobbyists and enthusiasts argued that the public safety threat is overblown. Law breaking gun possessors, they said, will continue to break laws regardless of how strict or lax they are. The bill is about enshrining Ohioans rights under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“I don’t think there’s anything in the bill that says, ‘If you’re prohibited from carrying a [concealed] firearm, suddenly now you can’ — if you’re prohibited, you’re prohibited,” said Rep. Shane Wilkin, a cosponsor of the bill and committee chairman overseeing its hearings, in an interview.
“Those that are going to carry that are not mindful of the law regardless of what it is, are going to carry regardless.”
After the hearing, Wilkin said he didn’t know if the bill would be up for a vote at its next hearing but said he wouldn’t rule it out.
Lawmakers on the committee were generally warm to the legislation. Rep. Phil Plummer, R-Butler Twp., said it’s “kind of bizarre” that it’s legal to openly carry a weapon in Ohio, but becomes illegal if you put on a jacket that covers it.
Rep. Don Jones, R-Freeport, needled one witness who said states that legalized permitless concealed carry experienced higher levels of violent crime than those that did not. He asked whether that could be the effect of other legislation like legalizing marijuana for recreational use.
The Senate Veterans and Public Safety Committee, meanwhile, has held two hearings on similar legislation from Sen. Terry Johnson, R-McDermott.
A key difference from the House version: The Senate bill would also establish procedures for a pretrial immunity hearing for people facing criminal charges or a civil lawsuit related to their use of force in purported self-defense.
The hearing, which would come before any trial, provides a substantial advantage to the accused: It would tell the court to assume the accused used force in self-defense and requires prosecutors (in a criminal case) to prove beyond a reasonable doubt or plaintiffs (in a civil lawsuit) to provide “substantial evidence” that the person did not use force in self-defense.
If the prosecutor or plaintiff fails in this, the accused would be considered immune from the charge or lawsuit. If they succeed, the proceedings will then move toward a trial.
Although bill proponents say otherwise, courts have generally held that licensing requirements to carry concealed weapons do not violate the Second Amendment.
In a 2003 Ohio Supreme Court opinion (that preceded Ohio’s first concealed carry law), Justice Paul Pfeifer, writing for the majority, was blunt in a majority opinion.
“(The law) does not unconstitutionally infringe the right to bear arms; there is no constitutional right to bear concealed weapons,” he wrote.
“Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited,” he wrote.
“(There is no constitutional) right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is responsible by law to handle some of the administrative work in Ohio’s concealed carry program. In a statement, a spokesman said Yost has not yet taken a position on either bill and is actively monitoring them.
“By any measure, Ohio’s concealed-carry licensing system has succeeded in combining safeguards that protect the public and provisions that uphold Americans’ right to bear arms and protect themselves,” he wrote in the 2020 annual report on the program.
Twenty-one states allow inhabitants (residents only in North Dakota) to carry a concealed weapon without a permit, according to a count from the U.S Concealed Carry Association. This includes neighboring states of West Virginia and Kentucky.
Two Ohio House Republicans on Tuesday proposed legalizing marijuana for recreational use in Ohio.
In legislation that has not yet been formally introduced, Reps. Jamie Callender and Ron Ferguson pitched a program that would allow Ohioans 21 and older to purchase marijuana from licensed distributors or grow up to six plants in their home.
“Adults should be able to make decisions for themselves,” Ferguson said. “That’s what this bill is about.”
The bill would impose a 10% sales tax on marijuana. As drafted, 25% of the revenue would go to support law enforcement, and another 25% would go toward mental health services with a focus on substance use recovery efforts. Adults could lawfully possess up to five ounces of marijuana.
The sponsors acknowledged the bill’s trajectory would be somewhat dicey: They said the House Speaker is hesitant on the issue; the governor and Senate President have expressed more explicit opposition.
“[The Speaker] is generally unfavorable to recreational use,” Callender said. “However, he does read the tea leaves, and he is giving us a chance to prove that this is a reasonable option.”
Callender said there would be an expungement process outlined in the bill for people who have previously been convicted of certain crimes related to marijuana. He didn’t immediately offer specifics.
Outside organizers, in an industry-backed effort, are seeking to force the Legislature’s hand. In August, they received the green light from state officials to begin collecting the 133,000 signatures required to force lawmakers to consider the issue. Should lawmakers decline to do so, the issue would then be placed on the ballot for voters to directly weigh in.
Callender said his proposal could be a means to get ahead of the ballot referendum and give lawmakers more control over the final outcome, though he acknowledged the principal ideas in both are similar.
The idea can be lucrative for the state. Colorado, roughly half the population of Ohio, levies a 15% sales tax on retail marijuana, plus a 2.9% sales tax on marijuana sold in stores and a 15% wholesale sales tax. The state earned $387 million in marijuana tax revenue from calendar year 2020, according to state data. Michigan, which launched its recreational program in late 2019, received $45.7 million in tax revenue in fiscal year 2020.
Despite hearing public, firsthand accounts of sexual abuse from eight of at least 177 victims of Ohio State sports physician Dr. Richard Strauss, state Republican leaders indicated they never planned to pass introduced legislation that would allow his victims to hold the university accountable in court.
Both former House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford, and current House Majority Leader Bill Seitz, R-Green Twp., said in recent statements they used the legislation and high-profile hearings to apply pressure on OSU to generate a larger out-of-court settlement for victims — not to guarantee anyone their right to a trial.
In interviews, five victims of Strauss’ abuse and several of their attorneys say they were never told of the purported strategy.
“Why f**k with victims in that way? That’s the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard.”
Mike Schyck, a two-time all-American wrestler for Ohio State
“Why f**k with victims in that way? That’s the most irresponsible thing I’ve ever heard,” said Mike Schyck, a two-time all-American wrestler for Ohio State, in a recent interview.
Schyck testified before lawmakers in 2019, recounting how Strauss sexually abused him during physical examinations. He said he thought the bill was an honest effort to change the law, not some kind of legal strategy.
“Why would you consider putting us through that?” he said.
Ohio law sets a two-year window within which adult victims of sexual abuse must file any civil lawsuits (child victims get a longer window). Strauss’ conduct occurred between 1979 and 1996, according to an OSU-commissioned, independent investigation.
“We [found] that university personnel had knowledge of Strauss’ sexually abusive treatment of male student-patients as early as 1979, but that complaints and reports about Strauss’ conduct were not elevated beyond the Athletics Department or Student Health until 1996,” the report states.
Victims filed a class action lawsuit that the Associated Press reports would grow to include about 400 plaintiffs. After the filing, an Ohio Republican introduced House Bill 249 in 2019 to allow a special exemption to this statute of limitations for Strauss victims. Last month, long after the bill died, U.S. District Judge Michael Watson dismissed the lawsuit, citing the statute of limitations. However, he lambasted Strauss’ “unspeakable sexual abuse” and how OSU “failed to protect these victims” in his opinion.
He placed much of the blame for his ruling at state lawmakers’ feet.
“If there is a viable path forward for plaintiffs on their claim against Ohio State, it starts with the legislature, rather than the judiciary,” he said.
Legislative leaders now admit they never planned to pass the bill.
The House Civil Justice Committee held six hearings on HB 249, hearing out victims, their wives, and parents. However, legislative leaders now admit they never planned to pass the bill.
“The reality is that the bill was introduced to provide the victims with a public forum to tell their stories and hope to persuade the university to settle with victims and bring some degree of closure to a very bad situation,” said Householder, then House speaker, in a statement.
Shawn Dailey, a former OSU wrestler and Strauss victim who testified before lawakers, said he was never told of this plan.
“That was someone else’s intent, perhaps, but it was never our intent,” he said.
Rocky Ratliff, an attorney representing Strauss victims and a victim and former wrestler himself, said he didn’t know of the strategy. Discussing it in an interview, he called Ohio lawmakers “pathetic.”
Rocky Ratliff, an attorney representing Strauss victims and a victim and former wrestler himself, said he didn’t know of the strategy. Discussing it in an interview, he called Ohio lawmakers “pathetic.”
During the hearings in 2019 and early 2020, athlete after athlete told lawmakers about how Strauss abused them, and the university failed to act on their complaints. Most all of them cried in front of strangers, lawmakers, TV cameras, and legislative staff.
They described to lawmakers abuses from Strauss like sodomy, forced masturbation, groping and fondling, usually during routine physicals required as a term of participating as a varsity athlete. Some described dealing with PTSD, broken relationships with parents and wives stemming from the abuse, trust issues causing fissures in personal relationships, alcoholism and more.
One former wrestler, Daniel Ritchie, described a series of escalating, unwanted advances from Strauss during annual physicals. When coaches ordered Ritchie to see Strauss for a shoulder injury his junior year, the appointment descended into Strauss stroking Ritchie’s genitals.
It was his first time telling his story publicly — until that point, he was only identified as a John Doe in the OSU lawsuit.
Ritchie explained to lawmakers how the abuse prompted him to quit wrestling. He couldn’t bring himself to tell his parents why. He lost his scholarship and his grades suffered, prompting him to take time from school.
In an interview, he expressed cycles of frustration at telling lawmakers his story on two occasions, retraumatizing himself for nothing.
“You have state government officials, and their sole job is to represent the people of their state,” he said. “When those people come before them and say, ‘We need your help,’ they didn’t help.”
Excerpt from Richard Strauss’ personnel file at Ohio State University. From Ohio State public records via public domain.
Applying pressure
The bill sponsor, Rep. Brett Hudson Hillyer, R-Uhrichsville, said he, in tandem with the victims, tried in good faith to pass House Bill 249. The legislation is extraordinarily narrow — it allows the Strauss victims, not any other sexual abuse or assault victims, to bring civil lawsuits against OSU even if the statute of limitations has passed.
In an interview, Hillyer said neither he nor the legislature should be blamed for the bill’s failure and Watson’s ruling against the plaintiffs. He insisted he fought in earnest to pass the bill but the votes just weren’t there. The bill never came up for a vote, which is usually a decision of the committee chairman in consultation with House leadership.
“I don’t think there was ever a time that leadership was heavily involved other than encouraging more hearings and asking Ohio State to do the right thing,” Hillyer said.
The chairman at the time, now-former Rep. Steve Hambley, R-New Brunswick, declined to answer questions and referred comment to Householder. He terminated a phone call when asked why he didn’t put the bill up for a vote.
Seitz, a powerful House Republican and Householder’s lieutenant overseeing the judicial committees at the time, didn’t play any public role regarding the bill. However, he recently wrote a letter, which he provided to the Ohio Capital Journal, in response to requests from Strauss victims to resurrect HB 249 in the current legislative session.
While he described Strauss’ conduct as “deplorable,” he said he opposed HB 249, which was “intended to apply pressure to Ohio State to come to the table and make meaningful settlement offers.”
Statutes of limitations, he said, ensure claims are brought when memories are fresh, evidence has not yet been lost, and defendants have a fairer opportunity to defend themselves against allegations that may be “tainted” by faded memories or misremembered events. Plus, he said, if lawmakers grant this extension, where does it end?
“It would have led to a flood of similar demands that the civil statute of limitations for damages be lifted as to lawsuits against churches, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and any number of charitable institutions whose past practices facilitated abuse similar to the abuse that you suffered,” he wrote.
Householder rejected the notion that lawmakers failed on the bill; the votes just weren’t there, he said.
“The intent was to pass the bill if it had support. I guess the obvious questions are, why didn’t [the victims] settle once it was extremely obvious the bill was out of oxygen?” he said.
State Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Green Twp. Screenshot courtesy The Ohio Channel.
A heinous precedent
With a statute of limitations as a shield and a legislature signaling its unwillingness to get rid of it, OSU faced a lower liability risk than universities that recently found themselves in similar positions.
After a former OSU wrestler blew the whistle on Strauss’ conduct in 2018, a university-commissioned investigation by the Perkins Coie law firm established that Strauss abused at least 177 victims over 20 years. Even after the university forced Strauss out in 1997, it allowed him to voluntarily retire and keep his “emeritus” honorific.
Ohio State settled lawsuits with 185 Strauss victims, paying out a total of $46.7 million, about $252,000 per victim. They settled another roughly 45 claims through its “Strauss Individual Settlement Program,” according to a university spokesman. The settlement program contains a term that it’s not “an admission or evidence of any wrongdoing or liability on the part of Ohio State or of the truth of any of the allegations in the lawsuits.”
The terms of the settlement allow victims to speak about their abuse but prohibits them from any “disparagement of Ohio State’s handling of this matter since March 2018, of the terms of this settlement, or of the Program.”
The Michigan Legislature passed legislation that year to extend the state’s statutes of limitation, giving sexual assault victims more time to report and sue their accusers, according to Michigan Live.
The OSU saga, however, is unique in that Strauss died by suicide in 2005 — Tyndall and Nassar are still alive.
Robert Allard, an attorney representing several Strauss victims, said his clients were victims of direct contact abuse. He accused Wright and Schulte, an Ohio firm representing other victims who led negotiations with OSU for the settlement, of only representing voyeurism victims. The cheap settlements, he said, took pressure off state lawmakers to pass HB 249.
“The truth is that virtually all of those … who suffered actual sex abuse, i.e. forced masturbation, digital penetration and sodomy, have yet to receive anything remotely close to a fair offer for settlement,” he said. “OSU concocted a scheme designed to screw over true sex abuse victims and found a lackey to pull it off. The whole thing makes me ill. I have never before in my 25 years seen such Machiavellian behavior designed to violate sex abuse victims all over again.”
“The truth is that virtually all of those … who suffered actual sex abuse, i.e. forced masturbation, digital penetration and sodomy, have yet to receive anything remotely close to a fair offer for settlement,” he said. “OSU concocted a scheme designed to screw over true sex abuse victims and found a lackey to pull it off. The whole thing makes me ill. I have never before in my 25 years seen such Machiavellian behavior designed to violate sex abuse victims all over again.”
OSU spokesman Chris Booker called Allard’s allegation “patently false,” noting that individual settlement amounts are determined by an independent party without input from the university. He didn’t offer specifics as to what kinds of claims have been settled.
Richard Schulte, of the namesake firm, did not respond to repeated inquiries. He now represents sexual abuse survivors at a similar scandal emerging out of the University of Michigan.
“Our ongoing negotiations with Ohio State have resulted in a fair settlement process that acknowledges the harm inflicted on individual survivors and provides a pathway to healing,” he said in an OSU news release announcing some of the settlements. “Once again, Ohio State has stepped forward and done the right thing.”
Justice for some?
In 2019, House Democrats introduced more comprehensive legislation to address sexual assault in Ohio. It would have removed the criminal statute of limitations to prosecute rape, along with the civil statute of limitations. It also would have closed a loophole in Ohio law that shields men from prosecution if they rape their spouses.
The bill received one, perfunctory hearing in December 2020 with mere days left in the legislative session. House Democrats controlled 38 of 99 seats at the time, meaning they couldn’t pass any bills for the most part without GOP buy-in and acquiescence from the speaker.
Rep. Kristin Boggs, D-Columbus, sponsored that bill. She said the Democrats likely would have opposed HB 249.
“I 100% believe the victims of Strauss deserve justice, but so does everyone else,” she said. “The fact that this was only being carved out for a specific subset of victims, who by all accounts have suffered greatly due to these horrendous experiences perpetrated by this awful human, I don’t think that justified opening access to justice for them and denying it for everyone else.”
But Rep. Rich Brown, the ranking Democrat on the House Civil Justice Committee, said he figured Democrats likely would have voted for the Strauss bill, although they preferred Boggs’ bill. He said he regularly prodded Hambley to put the Strauss bill up for a vote, only to be told the “powers that be” weren’t having it.
“I feel sorry for the victims,” he said in an interview. “Their testimony in committee was powerful.”
The hearings
Over the course of six hearings, athlete after athlete recounted their abuse; how coaches and administrators ignored their complaints; and how the abuse caused lasting damage.
A swimmer detailed abuse that started with unwanted and inappropriate touching of his genitals. His career ended when Strauss attempted to forcibly sodomize him. He quit swimming, then quit school. He doesn’t trust doctors and won’t see them without his wife present.
A hockey player described how Strauss’ abuse started small and escalated over the years, culminating in the doctor touching and stroking his penis during a required physical. He told an athletic trainer who did nothing. He described himself as a “train wreck” afterward, losing an NHL deal before being diagnosed with PTSD.
“If someone had done something when I reported this 30 years ago, none of these other men here would have been abused,” he said. “Not a single one.”
A wrestler said he was molested 15 times by Strauss in the 1990s, sometimes at the doctor’s personal home. He said he has sought out therapy and contemplated suicide. He said he hasn’t had a physical in more than 20 years now.
“In my mind, I was raped, 15 times. Everybody knew,” he said. “I don’t know why this has taken so long, and all I can ask is just, please, vote and pass and say yes to 249 so this doesn’t happen again.”
A non-athlete student and former major in the U.S. Army said he was abused at Strauss’ clinic and complained to the university as late as 1995. Administrators, he said, told him no one had ever complained before about Strauss.
Brian Noethlich, an attorney representing an anonymous victim in the lawsuit, said his client was drugged and sodomized by Strauss.
“I’m haunted to this day by the image of all the blood,” he said, reading a statement his client wrote. “I was shocked and scared, in tremendous pain and didn’t know what to do.”
Courtesy of Mike Schyck, seen second from the left.
Lobbying
State lobbying records show Ohio State University registered two lobbyists to work on the bill; the Inter-University Council of Ohio, which represents Ohio schools, had another three.
Some of the plaintiffs’ firms followed suit.
Sharp Law, a firm representing several Strauss victims, hired GOP powerhouse lobbyist Neil Clark to lobby on its behalf. Clark would later be charged alongside Householder in the summer of 2020 for his alleged role in a bribery scheme operated through the House Speaker’s office. Prosecutors say he served as Householder’s proxy, controlling a dark money nonprofit. Both Householder and Clark (who died by suicide earlier this year) pleaded not guilty and denied accusations of bribery.
Clark represented a wide range of clients, and there’s no evidence to link the criminal scandal (mostly involving coal and nuclear bailouts) to the Strauss legislation.
However, Householder made statements through the media at the time calling on OSU to “do the right thing” and settle with the Strauss victims.
The groups do not disclose the sources of their funding.
An email obtained by the Ohio Capital Journal, written by a lobbyist registered alongside Clark to various attorneys representing Strauss victims, with the subject line “The Ohio State Accountability Project,” details a phone call from Kevin DeWine — a former lawmaker and cousin of the governor. The email states DeWine is a neighbor of Rick Schulte, who was the lead negotiator settling with OSU.
The email describes a “robo text” that went out to undisclosed recipients, and other strategies.
“Their PR focus is on making OSU uncomfortable rather than pushing for legislation although they understand that HB 249 provides a forum for more attention on the issue as well as increases in media coverage,” the email states.
Large insurance firms like AIG and Liberty Mutual Group registered to lobby as well; insurers generally oppose expansions of liability of institutions they cover. They didn’t respond to inquiries from the Capital Journal.
The Catholic Church, which has its own history of sexual abuse and subsequent coverups, registered two lobbyists on the bill as well. Jerry Freewalt, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Ohio, said they didn’t take a position for or against the bill.
“The Conference made some inquiries about the legislation and monitored it as we do with many other bills covering a wide-range of issues,” he said.
“A disservice to survivors”
Camille Cooper, vice president of public policy for the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, lobbies state legislatures around the U.S. to eliminate or extend their statutes of limitation for rape charges.
She said she has never heard of a bill used as leverage, as House GOP leaders described.
“It’s quite a disservice to survivors,” she said. “It takes a lot when they come down to the General Assembly to tell their story. That’s a little — I would call it cynical.”
She said there are complicated reasons victims don’t immediately come forward. Extensions of statutes of limitation don’t lower plaintiffs’ burden of proof, she said, they just let them come forward when ready.
“There are a lot of survivors who do not come forward for years, or even decades, especially if it’s due to power,” she said. “We shouldn’t leave the doors of justice open only just a crack.”
Camille Crary testified in support of the bill on behalf of the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence. In an interview, however, she acknowledged constitutional problems with only extending the statute of limitation for Strauss victims instead of all victims of abuse.
She said among the problems with lawmakers’ inaction: it sends a signal to institutions that if they learn of a monster within their ranks, they only need to run out the clock a few years to escape liability. There’s no incentive to immediately correct problematic conduct as it arises.
She said among the problems with lawmakers’ inaction: it sends a signal to institutions that if they learn of a monster within their ranks, they only need to run out the clock a few years to escape liability. There’s no incentive to immediately correct problematic conduct as it arises.
Ratliff, the Strauss victim who sued the university as an attorney, explained the OSU strategy another way: “Deny it, cover it up, hope it never comes out, and if it does, just argue the statute of limitations.”
As for the lawmakers’ pressure play, Crary said it seems to assume that victims want to talk about their abuse publicly, which is not always true.
“I think it’s extremely presumptuous for any lawmakers … especially who didn’t work for victims, to say what is or is not beneficial for them,” she said.
Only one person publicly opposed the bill: Kevin Shimp, representing the Ohio Alliance for Civil Justice, which is comprised of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Manufacturers Association and others.
“The alliance believes creating the potential for endless liability is not the appropriate balance because it only considers one party’s interest,” he said. “Passage of House Bill 249 would undermine the important goals of statutes of limitation by reviving claims that were not filed in criminal or civil court within the time frame required by statute.”
Predictable failure
Part of the plaintiff’s argument was that the statute of limitations on Strauss victims didn’t start at the time of their abuse, given OSU’s role concealing Strauss’ conduct.
But as Watson, the judge, ruled in his dismissal, plaintiffs knew of their injury, the identity of the perpetrator and his employee.
The lawmakers who could have solved the plaintiffs’ statute of limitations problem said they figured the lawsuit would fail without legislative action.
Seitz noted that the victims who held out against OSU’s settlement offer were left with nothing, “as most lawyers could have predicted.”
“Under the current statute of limitations, they would have expired, and unfortunately, these victims would not have an opportunity to have their day in court,” Hillyer said.
An Ohio man whose wife sued a Cincinnati area hospital for refusing to provide him ivermectin as he was intubated due to COVID-19 has died, according to one of her attorneys.
Jeffrey Smith, 51, died Sept. 25, according to the family’s attorney, Jonathan Davidson.
While he was on a ventilator, Julie Smith filed a lawsuit against West Chester Hospital for refusing to honor a prescription of ivermectin written by a physician who founded a controversial group that champions the drug.
Ivermectin is an antiparasitic in humans and a dewormer in livestock. It has grown in popularity, egged on by conservative commentators and politicians, as a treatment and preventative against COVID-19. The CDC, Food and Drug Administration, American Medical Association, the drug’s manufacturer and more all warn against the drug’s use against COVID-19, given the lack of evidence to support the treatment and the risks the drug can pose to those who take it.
Neither Julie Smith nor her husband were vaccinated, she testified at a court hearing.
Common Pleas Judge Michael Oster reversed that ruling 13 days later. He said in a ruling, siding with expert witnesses from the hospital network who testified, the judgement isn’t a determination that ivermectin will never be proven effective against COVID-19.
“However, based upon the evidence, it has not been shown to be effective at this juncture,” he said. “The studies that tend to give support to ivermectin have had inconsistent results, limitations to the studies, were open label studies, were of low quality or low certainty, included small sample sizes, various dosing regiments, or have been so riddled with issues that the study was withdrawn.”
At the time, Ralph Lorigo, a New York attorney who has filed similar lawsuits around the country, claimed victory regardless. He cited purported indications that Jeffrey Smith’s condition was improving, and attributed this to the temporary dosing of the drug.
“This is a man who has been helped by the medication, and this is a judge who just doesn’t get it right,” Lorigo said.
Click here for more in-depth coverage of Julie Smith’s lawsuit.
Despite several plea deals with federal prosecutors regarding bribery on a massive scale to pass legislation providing a windfall to nuclear and coal companies, Ohio utility customers continue to fund bailouts of failing coal-fired power plants in Ohio and Indiana.
In the first half of 2021, Ohio utility customers paid $51 million to subsidize the plants, which are jointly owned by Ohio utility companies like American Electric Power, Duke Energy, AES Ohio and others. That’s on top of the $115 million ratepayers paid last year, according to data from state utility regulators.
Sen. Mark Romanchuk, R-Ontario, has spearheaded efforts within the GOP on a piece-by-piece strategy to repeal the remnants of House Bill 6, which codified the coal bailout through 2030.
HB 6 passed via the muscle of $61 million that utility giant FirstEnergy Corp. paid into an account secretly controlled by House Speaker Larry Householder, R-Glenford. That money funded the bill’s passage and enriched those in on the scheme, according to a statement of facts the company proffered to the U.S. Department of Justice. (Householder has pleaded not guilty to a count of racketeering and awaits trial.)
Romanchuk said Tuesday he’s facing resistance from his counterparts on the Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee as far as repealing the coal plant bailouts.
“You need votes to get it out of committee; the votes probably aren’t there right now,” he said to reporters after a hearing.
State Sen. Mark Romanchuk, R-Ontario. Official photo.
“The legislation has some other things in it like refunds that are probably, in the minds of committee members, not what they want to vote for.”
Senate Energy Chairman Rob McColley, R-Napoleon, said Tuesday he has no update on timing regarding a vote to repeal the coal bailouts. He said Romanchuk is working behind the scenes to prepare the bill for a vote, but he’s not involved in specific details.
“You know how I feel about House Bill 6. I voted no because I thought it stunk from the very beginning,” he said. “But at the same time, we’ve got to work this through the committee process and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Tuesday’s hearing: solar credits
The Senate Energy and Public Utilities Committee met Tuesday to consider Senate Bill 118, a Romanchuk bill that would repeal a lesser-discussed piece of HB 6: a $20 million annual credit, funded by utility customers, for certain solar projects.
SB 118 has support from opponents of HB 6: the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, the Ohio Manufacturing Association, and the Ohio Consumers Counsel, which represents ratepayers.
Lobbyists representing OMA and AFP described the credit structure as a form of cronyism, alleging HB 6 was narrowly tailored to ensure the payments made it to a select few solar projects.
A spokeswoman from the Ohio Air Quality Development Authority, which oversees the solar credit program, confirmed collections from consumers won’t begin until Nov. 1. Five projects in Highland, Brown, Hardin and Vinton counties have been approved to receive payments within the program.
He has maintained his innocence throughout. He’s scheduled to appear for a status conference before a federal judge Oct. 5.
“I have not, not have I ever, taken a bribe or solicited or been solicited for taking a bribe. Never,” Householder said.
Two alleged Householder co-conspirators — his political strategist Jeff Longstreth and lobbyist Juan Cespedes — pleaded guilty in October 2020 to one count each of racketeering. Neil Clark, a high power GOP lobbyist, was charged as well. He died by suicide earlier this year.
In July, FirstEnergy admitted in court documents that it paid $61 million into an account that Householder controlled to pass HB 6. The company agreed to pay a $230 million penalty and plead guilty to a charge of wire fraud.
The documents state the company paid $22 million to Sam Randazzo, an energy lawyer appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine to lead the PUCO, in the decade before his appointment. This includes a $4.3 million payment just before he assumed the post.
Hamilton, Ohio – A Butler County judge sided with a local hospital and reversed a previous court order forcing it to honor a prescription of ivermectin, which infectious disease experts have warned against as a COVID-19 treatment, for a patient who has spent weeks in the ICU with the disease.
After two days of testimony and arguments, Common Pleas Judge Michael Oster issued an order Monday siding with West Chester Hospital. He said the hospital bears no duty to honor a prescription written for Jeffrey Smith, 51, for ivermectin, a drug used as a dewormer in horses and an anti-parasitic in humans.
“This Court is not determining if ivermectin will ever be effective and useful as a treatment for COVID-19,” Oster said.
“However, based upon the evidence, it has not been shown to be effective at this juncture. The studies that tend to give support to ivermectin have had inconsistent results, limitations to the studies, were open label studies, were of low quality or low certainty, included small sample sizes, various dosing regiments, or have been so riddled with issues that the study was withdrawn.”
Julie Smith brought the lawsuit on behalf of her husband, Jeffrey Smith, who tested positive for COVID-19 and was admitted to the ICU July 15, where he remains today. He has been sedated, intubated and on a ventilator since Aug. 1.
Julie Smith testified that neither she nor her husband were vaccinated against COVID-19. She said it was “experimental,” so she didn’t trust it.
“We didn’t feel confident it had been out long enough,” she said during a hearing Thursday.
She later connected with Dr. Fred Wagshul, a founding physician of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, a nonprofit that touts ivermectin as a wonder drug. Wagshul is a licensed physician but is not board certified within any specialty and hasn’t worked in a hospital for 10 years, according to his testimony.
He prescribed Jeffrey Smith 21 days’ worth of ivermectin without reviewing Jeffrey Smith’s clinical information or talking to any of his treating physicians. He said the pharmaceutical industry and U.S. government have smeared ivermectin and “censored” its allegedly undeniable beneficial value.
However, when asked if it had benefitted Smith, he hedged.
“I honestly don’t know, but the rule of thumb is, when something is working, you don’t stop it,” he said.
Several witnesses for the hospital cast doubt on Wagshul’s testimony and credibility as a physician. Dr. Ferhan Asghar, a surgeon and chief of staff at the hospital, said a physician who is not board certified would never be admitted to practice at West Chester, per hospital policy. He said it was also a “concern” that a physician would issue such a controversial prescription without seeing the patient or reviewing his information.
Dr. Jaime Robertson is an infectious disease physician who sits on a committee at UC Health, which staffs West Chester Hospital, to review available evidence to guide treatment for COVID-19 patients. He said the evidence doesn’t necessarily conclude ivermectin doesn’t work; instead, he said ivermectin bears risks just like any treatment but there’s no conclusive evidence to show enough benefit exists to outweigh that risk.
“I think the problem here is there are conflicting outcomes in public health literature,” he said.
Dr. Daniel Tanase, Jeffrey Smith’s treating physician, disputed any notion that the ivermectin demonstrably helped his patient, and said there’s not enough evidence to support the use of ivermectin on COVID-19 patients.
“We follow science and we follow what the guidelines are,” he said. “So yes, I don’t think ivermectin is what he needs at this time.”
Officials on ivermectin
On Aug. 26, the CDC issued a health alert warning of a five-fold increase of calls to poison control centers regarding ivermectin exposure compared to a pre-pandemic baseline. These included exposures related to topical and veterinary formulations of the drug.
“Clinical effects of ivermectin overdose include gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea,” the CDC states. “Overdoses are associated with hypotension and neurologic effects such as decreased consciousness, confusion, hallucinations, seizures, coma, and death. Ivermectin may potentiate the effects of other drugs that cause central nervous system depression such as benzodiazepines and barbiturates.”
Ohio Hospital Association President Mike Abrams said in a statement before Oster issued his order stating there is insufficient data to support ivermectin as a treatment for COVID-19. He called the initial order “concerning” in regards to forcing a hospital to use a drug unapproved for use.
“OHA believes it is an extraordinarily dangerous precedent for judges to practice medicine and order unproven medical treatments over the objections of highly-trained clinicians and against all standards established by the medical community,” Baker said.
Appeal is unlikely
Bill J. Paiobeis, an attorney for West Chester Hospital, declined comment Monday, citing the potential for an appeal.
Kelly Martin, a UC Health spokeswoman, said the hospital network respects its doctors and the scientific rigor they use to develop treatments, medications and therapies. UC Health, she said, doesn’t believe that hospitals or clinicians should be ordered to administer medications, especially “unproven medications and/or therapies,” against medical advice.
“This news, while positive in support of respect for science and the expertise of medical professionals, does not change the fact that there are many people suffering from COVID-19 in our communities,” she said. “We implore all members of the community to do what we know works: wear a mask, become fully vaccinated and use social distancing whenever possible.”
Ralph Lorigo, an attorney representing Smith, said he won the lawsuit in a way. He said Jeffrey Smith obtained 13-days’ worth of ivermectin, and the hospital has since told Julie Smith that they’re ready to begin to ween him off the ventilator.
“Julie has won this case; I don’t care what this judge says,” Lorigo said in an interview. “We are believers he’s going to survive because of ivermectin.”
He said he’s not planning any appeal as one would effectively be moot.
“This is a man who has been helped by the medication, and this is a judge who just doesn’t get it right,” Lorigo said.
A Butler County judge ruled in favor of a woman last week who sought to force a hospital to administer Ivermectin — an animal dewormer that federal regulators have warned against using in COVID-19 patients — to her husband after several weeks in the ICU with the disease.
Butler County Common Pleas Judge Gregory Howard ordered West Chester Hospital, part of the University of Cincinnati network, to treat Jeffrey Smith, 51, with Ivermectin. The order, filed Aug. 23, compels the hospital to provide Smith with 30mg of Ivermectin daily for three weeks.
The drug was originally developed to deworm livestock animals before doctors began using it against parasitic diseases among humans. Several researchers won a Nobel Prize in 2015 for establishing its efficacy in humans. It’s used to treat head lice, onchocerciasis (river blindness) and others.
Estimated number of outpatient ivermectin prescriptions dispensed from retail pharmacies — United States, March 16, 2019–August 13, 2021. Data are from the IQVIA National Prescription Audit Weekly (NPA Weekly) database. NPA Weekly collects data from a sample of approximately 48,900 U.S. retail pharmacies, representing 92% of all retail prescription activity. Source: CDC.
Julie Smith filed the lawsuit on behalf of her husband of 24 years. He tested positive for COVID-19 July 9, was hospitalized and admitted to the ICU July 15, and was sedated and intubated and placed on a ventilator Aug. 1. He later developed a secondary infection he’s still wrestling with as of Aug. 23, court records say.
The lawsuit doesn’t mention whether Jeffrey Smith is vaccinated against COVID-19. However, overwhelming majorities of people currently hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated — data from the Ohio Department of Health shows of roughly 21,000 Ohioans hospitalized with COVID-19 since Jan. 1, only about 500 were vaccinated.
Julie Smith found Ivermectin on her own and connected with Dr. Fred Wagshul, an Ohio physician who her lawsuit identifies as “one of the foremost experts on using Ivermectin in treating COVID-19.” He prescribed the drug, and the hospital refused to administer it.
A hospital spokeswoman said she can’t comment on litigation and federal patient privacy laws prevent her from commenting on any specifics of patient care.
The Ohio lawsuit makes reference to the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, a nonprofit of which Wagshul is listed as a founding physician. The organization touts Ivermectin as both a preventative and treatment for COVID-19. Its “How To Get Ivermectin” section includes prices and locations of pharmacies that will supply it, from Afghanistan to Fort Lauderdale to Pennsylvania to Sao Paulo, Brazil.
In an interview, Wagshul said the science behind Ivermectin’s use in COVID-19 patients is “irrefutable.” The CDC and FDA engaged in a “conspiracy,” he said, to block its use to protect the FDA’s emergency use authorization for COVID-19 vaccines. He said the mainstream media and social media companies have been engaging in “censorship” on Ivermectin’s merits, and that the U.S. government’s refusal to acknowledge its benefits amounts to genocide.
“If we were a country looking at another country allowing those [COVID-19] deaths daily … we would have been screaming, ‘Genocide!’” he said.
Wagshul said he had no financial interest in the sale of Ivermectin.
Dr. Leanne Chrisman-Khawam, a physician and professor at the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, called the FLCCCA “snake oil salesmen.” She reviewed the association’s research on the drug’s uses and said there are some serious problems with its cited studies: many of them don’t show positive results, and those that do bear design flaws like small control groups, unaccounted for variables, non-blinded studies, not accounting for mitigations like vaccines and masking practices, and others.
“Based on evidence-based medicine and my read on this large number of small studies, I would find this very suspect, even the positive outcomes,” she said.
Several state authorities declined to comment on the matter. Cameron McNamee, a spokesman for the state Board of Pharmacy, referred inquiries to the state Medical Board, the attorney general, and the Ohio Hospital Association.
A spokesman for the state Medical Board, which licenses physicians, said its jurisdiction is over the practice of doctors and how they uphold standards of care — not lawsuits.
A spokeswoman for Attorney General Dave Yost declined comment and referred inquiries to the Board of Pharmacy and Veterinary Board.
An Ohio Hospital Association spokesman called the lawsuit “interesting” but said he’d need to confer with his legal team before commenting.
It’s unclear why the hospital didn’t mount any defense under a new law passed in the state budget this summer that grants health care providers the “freedom to decline to perform” any service which violates their “conscience,” as informed by moral, ethical or religious beliefs.
No attorney information for West Chester Hospital was available on the court docket as of Friday afternoon.
More than 3,000 Ohioans per day are contracting COVID-19 on average, the highest the rate has been since early February.
Over the last month, hospitalizations increased by between 83% and 375% by age group, according to data from the Ohio Hospital Association.
As children go back to school, more students are testing positive. Comparing the week of July 4 with the week of August 25, COVID-19 infections leapt by 909% among all Ohioans and 827% among school-age Ohioans, according to separate data from the Ohio Department of Health.
While vaccination has modestly picked up pace, Ohio’s coverage sags well below the national average. About 52% of the state has received at least one vaccine dose, compared to 61% nationally, according to a New York Times data tracker. Only 12 states have a lower rate.
The state’s hottest spots for infection are toward the southern border, where the vaccination rate sits between 30% and 40%.
All told, more than 65,000 Ohioans have been hospitalized with COVID-19. More than 20,700 have died.
“With many districts going back to school last week, the number of illnesses from Monday, Aug. 23 is troubling,” said ODH Director Dr. Bruce Vanderhoff in a news release. “As students statewide continue to return to their classrooms, this high figure should be yet another indicator to parents and families that the best protection from COVID-19 is for those 12 and older to choose to be vaccinated, and for those who aren’t vaccinated to wear masks.”
School vaccination records were missing or incomplete among roughly 1 in 5 sampled Ohio middle and high school students last year, despite state law requiring local boards of education to track immunizations records of all enrolled students.
All Ohio students, per state law, must be vaccinated against mumps, tetanus, polio, measles, Hepatitis B, chicken pox and meningococcal diseases. They can claim exemptions in writing due to natural immunity from prior infection; a medical contraindication; or for “reasons of conscience, including religious convictions.”
Though the law requires local boards of education to keep immunization summaries available on request for inquiring parents, schools statewide are failing to track vaccination among tens of thousands of students.
“The question is, why are the schools not collecting this data?” said Madhav Bhatta, an epidemiologist at Kent State University. “If it’s required by law that every child either get vaccinated or have a medical exemption … then why is there missing data?”
In the 2020-2021 school year, when a nascent pandemic shuttered schools and doctors’ offices, only 76% of 12th grade students submitted proof of receiving the meningococcal vaccine, according to immunization data obtained in a public records request from the Ohio Department of Health. The vaccine protects against meningitis and other, sometimes-lethal illnesses caused by the same bacteria.
About 22% of 12th graders had no exemption on file, leaving the picture unclear whether communities have high enough vaccination coverage to protect students.
That same year, only 78% of 7th grade school students statewide showed proof of receiving all vaccinations. Data was missing or incomplete on 19% of all 7th graders.
The missing data spans beyond the threshold for herd immunity for some vaccines. For instance, in the 2019-2020 year, 7.2% of kindergarteners and 9.4% of 7th grade students didn’t have all vaccination records or exemptions on file.
According to the World Health Organization, a community loses “herd immunity” — a threshold of community protection where a disease lacks viable hosts to spread — against measles when coverage falls below 95%. About 2.5% of students claimed a “conscience” objection, and a fraction of a percent claimed medical contraindications — which means they have diagnosed conditions where certain medical treatments such as a vaccine may cause harm.
“If [students with incomplete data] don’t have it on file because they are not vaccinated, that’s a problem,” Bhatta said. “We want as high a level of vaccination as possible to reduce the risk of transmission within a community.”
CDC research shows childhood immunization rates dropped significantly in 2020. However, the problem predates the pandemic. State data shows between 7.2% and 12.5% of sampled Ohio students did not show proof of vaccination or claim any exemption in 2019-2020 either.
The reports also lack data on vaccination by race or socioeconomic status, two major social determinants of health.
When contacted, different state agencies passed the blame or pointed fingers at county school boards, which are responsible for collecting data at the local level.
The COVID-19 vaccine data stands in stark contrast to the roughly 3% of public-school students who formally claim a nonmedical exemption year over year, raising more questions about the missing data.
Concerns about outbreaks of rare diseases among unvaccinated communities isn’t just a hypothetical.
Widespread vaccination eradicated measles in the U.S., but the virus can cause outbreaks when a host imports and spreads it among unvaccinated people. In early 2014, two unvaccinated Amish men returned to Knox County from the Philippines, unknowingly carrying measles, a highly infectious but vaccine-preventable disease. Amish communities tend to abstain from vaccination.
The two men seeded an outbreak that caused 383 infections in nine counties over four months, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. About 90% of the victims were unvaccinated. Health officials mounted an awareness campaign and surged in more than 12,000 MMR vaccine doses for some 10,600 people to eventually smother the outbreak.
Researchers also note that unvaccinated people are not randomly distributed. Rather, they tend to concentrate in certain areas. Thus, statewide vaccination numbers can mask the vulnerability of some specific counties.
The missing data is a “significant concern,” according to Amy Bush Stevens, vice president of the Health Policy Institute of Ohio.
HPIO analyzed the data obtained from the Ohio Department of Health. According to its analysis, students in non-Appalachian, rural communities are most likely to claim exemptions to vaccination mandates. Students in metropolitan counties are most likely to not submit their vaccination records.
Screenshot from Health Policy Institute of Ohio analysis of Ohio Department of Health Immunization Summary Report data.
The missing data blurs a critical picture of whether students are protected, she said.
“Childhood vaccinations are a highly effective way to prevent infectious diseases among kids that have killed many children in the past,” she said.
Who’s to blame?
The law requires local boards of education to provide a summary of student immunizations to the state health director every year.
When contacted, both the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Health sidestepped blame and pointed at the local schools.
Alicia Shoults, an ODH spokeswoman, said ODH provides funds for local health departments to do “assessment site visits for compliance.” The pandemic, however, limited this practice, and officials are still reviewing data to determine why so many students’ immunization records were missing last year.
“Ultimately, at the local level, schools are responsible for enforcement,” she said.
The Ohio Capital Journal requested data on school vaccination exemptions in May from the Ohio Department of Education. Spokeswoman Mandy Minick initially stated no such data exists. When asked about the data later obtained from ODH, its missing components, and the state law that requires it, she deflected blame.
The law prescribes roles to local schools and the state health director, not ODE, she said.
“The Department of Education does not have a prescribed role in the collection of this data,” Minick said.
A spokesman for the Ohio School Boards Association reviewed the immunization data but said he didn’t have anything to add.
OCJ contacted six county school boards overseeing schools with high rates of incomplete data. Only Youngstown City School District responded.
Of 152 seniors at Chaney High School in 2020-2021, 122 didn’t submit proof of vaccination or notice of exemption for the meningococcal vaccine — the only vaccine students must receive while in high school.
In the 2018-2019 school year (the 2019-2020 data is not broken out by high school), 89 of 158 students were missing meningococcal vaccine records.
If a meningitis outbreak emerged, officials wouldn’t immediately know who’s protected and who isn’t, costing precious time as vaccines are surged in.
Denise Dick, communications director for Youngstown City Schools, said while the pandemic worsened things, there has been a historical problem getting families to submit paperwork related to vaccination. However, the district is establishing in-school, optional vaccination appointments for a full spectrum of shots.
No one is forced to vaccinate, she said, but the goal is to make it as easy as possible for students. In the meantime, she acknowledged the district is flying blind as far as protection against infectious disease.
“Whether they’re not getting them, or they’re not giving us the record, we just don’t know that,” she said.
Solutions?
Amy Bush Stevens, from HPIO, has the fixes large and small.
On the mechanical side, HPIO analyzed a 2012 CDC survey of states and found Ohio is one of 18 states that doesn’t require health care providers and payers to report immunization data.
Some choose to, but others don’t. Mandatory reporting, she said, would clear the air on who’s vaccinated and who isn’t. (An ODH spokeswoman did not respond to an interview request with an administrator of ImpactSIIS, the state’s immunization information system.)
The current system, Stevens said, puts the burden on parents to submit records. For parents, especially those with lower incomes who move more often or change physicians, it’s too easy for documentation to get lost in the shuffle.
Another idea: tie reimbursement funding from Medicaid managed care plans more strongly to vaccination rates. More vaccination now equals lower costs of care down the line. And more outreach to eligible families to the Children’s Health Insurance Plan, which covers childhood vaccination, would help as the rate of uninsured children ticks up in Ohio.
And then there are structural changes. Public health departments are chronically underfunded in Ohio and one of the few fail safes for low-income, undocumented, or uninsured families. The Columbus Dispatch reported last year that Ohio spends less per capita on public health than all but three states.
“Anything we can do to increase the public health workforce will help with that and make sure that kids with no other source of care get their childhood immunizations,” Stevens said.
Other pending legislation would ban “vaccine passports” related to COVID-19. Discussion of the bills among proponents often dubiously characterizes a heavy-handed government forcing vaccines on the unwilling.
Among health experts, however, the reality is simple: Less vaccination equals more infectious disease.
“If you don’t rely on the school system to report — that’s the only way we could get a semblance of aggregated data,” Bhatta said.
Nearly two in three age-eligible teenagers remain unvaccinated against COVID-19 as summer ends and the disease looms over its third consecutive school year.
Spokespersons for the state departments of health and education said they did not know what percentage of students enrolled in public schools are vaccinated.
However, looking at the total population (which would include homeschooled students), more than 62% remain unvaccinated.
“As of today, there are 390,903 Ohioans age 12-18 who have started the vaccination process,” said Ohio Department of Health spokeswoman Alicia Shoults. “This represents 37.5% of that age group.”
Despite plans to attend classes in close contact with their peers several days per week, teenagers are the least vaccinated age cohort — surpassing 20-29-year-olds (44%) and 30-39-year-olds (51%).
The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was authorized for use in people aged 16-and-up in mid-December, though most states restricted access for elder and sicker residents through early 2021. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized its use on children 12-15 on May 11.
At a press conference last week, Gov. Mike DeWine said a communal goal of keeping students in school for in-person learning is “threatened” by the hyper-transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19. He repeated a recommendation from ODH that students either seek vaccination or wear a mask at school.
“The best way to make sure a child can stay in school and not have his or her classes interrupted, is for that child to be vaccinated,” he said. “If that child cannot be vaccinated, the best way to ensure a good school year for that child is for that child to wear a mask while in class.”
