Zinke has been an advocate for women's and veterans healthcare

I’ve been seeing political letters and TV ads about Congressman Ryan Zinke voting against equal pay for women and his non-support of women’s healthcare. Don’t believe the spin.

I am offended by the attempts to smear a true Montana hero. I’ve done my own research, and I can tell you that these claims are false.

Zinke is an advocate for women’s healthcare. For example, Zinke helped introduce legislation — the Medical Device Guardians Act — that requires unsafe medical devices be reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

This was as a result of a Missoula schoolteacher who died after a laparoscopic morcellator caused undetected cancer to spread during a routine hysterectomy. These morcellators are now off the market.

Our Congressman also introduced legislation to expand veterans’ access to local healthcare. He voted for the 21st Century Cures bill that will help facilitate breakthroughs involving numerous diseases, and supports the National Institute of Health.

Zinke is a listener. He has a bipartisan, all-volunteer healthcare advisory committee who counsels him on all aspects of frontier and rural healthcare.

Zinke never voted against equal pay for women.

Recently, Sen. Jon Tester was asked if Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts would be a good running mate for Clinton.

Sen. Tester replied that he didn’t know if the country was ready for two women. When asked about this, Zinke said it was women who would “get America back on track.”

Adriene Cardan, Whitefish