Amy Acton, ‘Ohio’s Anthony Fauci,’ Has Only Published One Research Paper. It’s About Horseback Riding.
When the newly inaugurated governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, was picking someone to run the $640 million Ohio Department of Health in the winter of 2019, he only asked Amy Acton one question: What was your childhood like?
Emily Kopp · Oct 28, 2026 · 4 min read
When the newly inaugurated governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, was picking someone to run the $640 million Ohio Department of Health in the winter of 2019, he only asked Amy Acton one question: What was your childhood like?
Acton charmed DeWine with her story — the unlikely triumph over a hardscrabble early beginning of homelessness and abuse, which is why DeWine’s top aide had recommended her in the first place. What apparently never came up: the doctor’s resume.
“It was February of 2019, … I got a call out of the blue: ‘The governor really wants to meet you,’” Acton said in public comments in October 2023 about her unlikely rise. “He said to me, ‘tell me about where you grew up. Tell me about your childhood.’ That’s the only question he ever asked.”
“And there’s something about him, I just got very real, because I wanted him to understand the social determinants of health,” she continued. “I said, ‘I had a really rough childhood in Youngstown’ — stuff I didn’t usually share with people in a large way.”
When COVID-19 arrived the next year, Acton, “Ohio’s Anthony Fauci,” had no track record of assessing health data in the scientific literature.
Acton has a medical degree, a master’s in public health and had taught at Ohio State University. But the Democrat’s research portfolio is very thin for someone who specializes in public policy rather than clinical medicine. A search for Acton in PubMed, the repository of medical papers hosted by the National Institutes of Health, turned up just one 2020 study about horse injuries. Nevertheless, Acton issued directives mandating policies restricting the lives of millions.
Seven years later, Acton is seeking to succeed DeWine as governor. She has centered her experience as a public health official as the core of her political identity. Allied groups say Acton is a “doctor, not a politician.” She faces Republican opponent Vivek Ramaswamy. Polls show a tight race.
A panned ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother has once again diverted attention from her pandemic policies to her upbringing.
But while Acton served as the state’s leading health official and as DeWine’s chief medical advisor, Ohio implemented a mask mandate that included indoor and outdoor locations. The state required all children to wear masks in school despite weak evidence for their efficacy in blunting COVID’s already low risk to kids.