Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed turned a controversial body of research into a platform for his political ascent, using identity-focused academic work to help advance and finance his path toward Congress, according to critics and a review of his research by The Post.
While at Columbia Medical School from 2007 to 2014, the progressive candidate authored more than 50 papers, including more than a dozen centered heavily on race, ethnicity and religion.
One 2011 study suggested that white Americans could learn from Muslims’ lower suicide rates, attributing the difference in part to the influence of Sharia law.
The study, titled “Suicide among Arab Americans,” examined suicide deaths in Michigan from 1990 through 2007 and received partial funding through grants from the National Institutes of Health.
Published in the Public Library of Science journal, the research found that Arab men had approximately half the suicide rate of white men, while Arab women had a rate 24% lower than that of white women.
“According to traditional interpretations of Islamic Sharia law, suicide is considered haram or forbidden, and families of suicide victims can face ostracism within the Muslim community,” El-Sayed wrote in the study’s conclusion.
Other research focused on race and ethnicity included “Birth outcomes among Arab Americans in Michigan before and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,” published in 2008, and “Ethnic Inequalities in Mortality: The Case of Arab Americans,” published in 2011.
His other papers examined topics including racial and insurance-related disparities in treatment for carotid artery stenosis and racial differences in anticipated medical-school debt in the United States.
El-Sayed came under renewed criticism last week over a 2011 paper that opponents described as racist and rooted in eugenics, arguing that Arab women should have children only with members of their own ethnic group to achieve better health outcomes.
“Our findings suggest that interethnic mating may be associated with increased risk for adverse birth
outcomes among Arab ethnicity mothers,” he wrote under the name Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed.
Critics dismissed the paper’s conclusions as pseudoscientific.
“This is ‘science’ with ‘a pre-ordained racist & eugenics outcome,’” Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, wrote on X. “Scary stuff.”
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Around that time, El-Sayed’s academic work also drew the attention of the family of billionaire Democratic donor George Soros, which later helped support his career.
In 2012, El-Sayed received the $90,000 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans to pursue a doctorate in epidemiology at Columbia University.
He completed the degree in 2014 and became executive director of the Detroit Health Department the following year.
Details about the fellowship came from Jeffrey Soros, a Hollywood producer and nephew of George Soros, who hosted El-Sayed at a celebrity-filled fundraiser in Los Angeles in September.
“I just wanted to welcome you here and express my appreciation for coming. And it’s been a privilege,” Jeffrey Soros said while standing beside El-Sayed, according to video of the remarks obtained by Fox News Digital.
“Speaking of privilege, I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Abdul since 2012. I got to interview him as a finalist for my parents’ fellowship, the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans,” he added.
El-Sayed, 41, has also faced intense scrutiny over alleged ties between his family and the Muslim Brotherhood, a terror-designated Islamist political movement that seeks to establish Sharia rule in Muslim-majority countries. After months of controversy, he has said he disavows those connections.
“We already knew he was a bigot, but this is over the top,” said Julian Epstein, a former chief counsel for the Democratic House Judiciary Committee. “In the same way he used his antisemitic hate to try to win the primary, now we see he’s used his half-baked pseudo-intellectual eugenics science to flesh out what looks like a pretty thin research record and perhaps persuade his more radical supporters that he really is aligned with racial separatism.”
He added: “How much more evidence do moderate Democrats need in order to switch.”
Kyle Shideler, director of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, previously told The Post the brotherhood’s goal is to “prevent Muslim Americans from assimilating into American culture” — a recurring theme that emerges throughout El Sayed’s research.
“The brotherhood wants to use political power in the United States to support activities abroad,” said Shideler. “At the end of the day, its big picture goal is to impose Islamic law on all nations everywhere and establish a caliphate.”
El Sayed’s campaign did not return The Post’s request for comment.
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