Candidate Profile: Nizam Razack

First-time candidate, Dr. Nizam Razack is the founder/president of the Spine & Brain Neurosurgery Center in Orlando and teaches healthcare law at Florida A&M University College of Law’s Orlando campus where he is an adjunct professor.

“ Because of Obamacare, I became involved with the Tea Party movement 20 years ago, and I was very against it,” Razack told attendees at the July 3 Candidates & Coffee forum sponsored by the Sumter County Republican Party. “… over the last 25 years, I've seen over-regulation and bad policies destroy our healthcare system. That's why I'm running to be your congressman. The number one employer in District 11 is healthcare. The most fraud and abuse in government is healthcare. That's what I'm running on.”

Razack, 60, was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1967 — legally, he emphasizes — when he was 3 years old. He’s likened becoming a U.S. citizen to “winning the lottery for me and my family.”

Now the father of five is running in the crowded Aug. 18 Republican Primary for the 11th Congressional District, which was long represented by the retiring Congressman Daniel Webster.

A member of the Florida Republican Freedom Assembly and a board member at the Islamic Center of Orlando, Razack faces former state legislator and former Lake County property appraiser Carey Baker of Eustis; Ivette Paolomo, a farmer from Bushnell; businessman Joe Strada of Lake Mary; and Christian media producer Tim Wilkins of Windermere.

The district encompasses parts of Orange County (including Winter Garden, Ocoee, Oakland and Windermere) and Lake and Sumter counties. U.S. representatives serve for two years and earn $174,000.

“I've worked in the operating rooms of Florida for 35 years, and the accountability of being a neurosurgeon is far different than the accountability for an elected official,” Razack said during the candidates forum. “Look at the makeup of our Congress right now. Look at the type of people that our, our citizens elect. Those standards that I live by and I work by are completely different than what is in Congress currently."

Here, Razack answers questions from the News Collaborative of Central Florida and VoxPopuli. Responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.  

If elected, what are the three most pressing problems you want to address, and what do you suggest to solve them?

1. Healthcare.

I've seen the bad policies and overregulation destroy our medical practice. I've seen patients hurt, families hurt, lack of access, poor quality, huge medical bills, lack of transparency. The number one reason for bankruptcy now is medical bills. If you get an MRI scan in my office, it costs $400. That same scan costs $5,000 across the street [at the hospitla] with the exact same scanner, even the same tech sometimes when my tech works there too. That makes no sense. [We need a] law that hospitals have to openly publish their rates because that will bring prices down across state lines.

2. We have to promote small businesses.

We have to promote small businesses because they're the backbone of our country. They employ 70 percent of the people. We need to get rid of certain aspects of the Stark Law to make small businesses run by physicians, more economical and survivable. There’s been a corporate takeover of medicine. They make the laws and regulations so stifling that people don’t want to [go into businesses]. We have to make it easier for people to manage small businesses rather than promote large corporations. We need tax breaks to make the cost of living more affordable rather than the giant corporations that can fire people and hire people to win. I think it can be done without increasing any taxes at all, if we can limit fraud and waste. What we need to do, at a federal level, is not give foreign countries blank checks. That's where you get the money. We can't support endless wars and nation building.

3. Make it easier for first-time home buyers to own a home.

Lower the interest rates on first-time home buyers. Part of being an American is owning a home. And I think that is escaping us. In Florida, you see all these huge apartment buildings being built and that's just … people aren't buying homes.

Why do you deserve to win the election?

We need more surgeons in Congress. Doing brain surgery, you can't just rush through it. You have to know when to go fast and when to go slow, and you have to be very strategic. In legislative politics, you have to be strategic. And that's why I use the phrase “getting the low-lying fruit.” Things that people would easily agreed upon, get that done first, before moving on to the more challenging things. I understand that things move slowly there, but I think my experience as a surgeon would give me that patience and understanding to hopefully accomplish at least the good things before dealing with the frustrating things.

Do you support the Iran War?

Iran does not support its people. It's a dictatorship. And I think every American agrees on that. That regime needs to go. The only thing I agree with is why we had to curtail that regime. We all assumed that [the war] would be a matter of days. We didn't think it would be going months, and that affected our economy, obviously, in retrospect. I think that’s what most Americans disagree with because we saw how the gas prices, the price of products all increased.

Have the tariffs grown our economy and reduced our cost of living?

Tariffs did improve the economy in that it increased U. S. manufacturing and improved American supply chains. One of the largest problems that we have is relying on Chinese products and China dominating American manufacturing supply chains. That allows the opportunity for American domestic manufacturers to shore up our economy and increase employment for our small businesses.

Has Congress abdicated its role as a co-equal branch of government?

In a way, it has, yes, because it needs to act. Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the legislative powers. They make the laws. One of the things that I have an issue with, obviously, is the bad over-regulatory laws that they've passed concerning the healthcare industry. And I think that they need to act. They need to have that congressional power and make decisions that affect the American people. That affects healthcare, which also indirectly affects Medicare, and then indirectly affects Social Security, and then our economy. The largest segment of our population is between 60 and 90. People are aging, people are living longer lives. So Congress has to recognize that and they need to act. So, I think they have not been doing so. Part of that reason is the lack of working as a bipartisan group.

What’s your position on Ukraine?

Obviously, we're not physically in Europe. We have an ocean that separates us. So I think the role of the United States is to help support the European countries who are directly threatened by Russia. I'm not a big fan of sending endless amount of blank checks to foreign nations such as Ukraine. I think we need to support our senior citizens and veterans at home more than we need to support Ukrainian interests.

America's support for Israel is at a crossroads. Where do you stand?

I think that Israel is the only governmental democracy in that area. It's a huge ally. Now I'm biased because I have worked with Israeli companies to develop medical brain robotic systems that I've used in patients here. I've worked with Israeli engineers to supply healthcare in the United States to my patients. There's a strong symbiotic relationship in terms of the medical industry, number one. In terms of foreign policy, I think that Israel is at least the mightiest ally in that region, and it will hopefully exert U. S. interests at least from our foreign policy perspective in the region. For example, we can't have an endless war with Iran, but if Israel is there in terms of policing Iran, that would allow our military to pull back and reduce federal spending in that war.

I know the Democratic Party is wants to break aid to Israel. I disagree with that. I think that in terms of regional security, as long as the United States works with Israel, I think Israel can defend itself in terms of aid. Israel has a right to self defense. We can't give blank checks to any foreign nations. I've stated that publicly. Whether it's Ukraine, Israel, no matter who it is, we cannot afford, with the $35 trillion dollar deficit at this point, to give blank checks to any country. If it is in United States' best interests and it strategically helps the security of the United States as an America first policy, then we can give funding to foreign nations.

Do you want to see Supreme Court re-evaluate same-sex marriage?

I support the existing laws that exist now for gay marriage. I don't think there needs to be any change.

Gallup survey found 30 percent of American adults own guns. You’re running in a very gun-friendly district. Where do you stand on the Second Amendment?

I support the Second Amendment. Gun owners who legally own guns have that right, and they should. Obviously, you should keep guns from criminals and people with mental health issues But aside from that, I think we need to enforce the existing gun laws that are on the books currently. Remember, I get paid to take bullets out of patients' heads. So I see the problems with criminals having guns. I think the existing gun laws as they are now are sufficient.

Who won the 2020 election?

Joe Biden.

Would you support a national abortion ban?

I agree with what it is now, a states’ rights issue. I’m pro-life. The state has an interest in every life. Yet balancing that is the mother’s right to liberty and privacy.

As a doctor and a surgeon I also know that there are cases where there's a maternal health risk to the mother in certain cases that lead to life and death. So that would have to be weighed. We know in many cases, a fetus can have severe birth defects that may be incompatible with life. We can know that upfront, and those could be cases where obviously the life of the mother is extremely important and the mother or the parents would have to be informed of that. So that's a case where when when the fetus is not going to be viable where there may be an exception. Who makes that determination, the doctor? The family and the doctor? There has to be an informed consent process between the privacy rights of the parents and the mother and the physician, the medical knowledge that the physician brings. It’s hard to answer that question without knowing the medical facts of each case. I simply can’t.

In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave new recruits the option not to get the flu vaccine, which had been required for military readiness for decades. Two months later, one of the Air Force bases in Texas experienced a flu outbreak, and the flu vaccine was once again mandated. Where do you stand on vaccine mandates?

I'm a neurosurgeon. My fourth child has autism, severe autism. I want to make that clear that I'm biased in that regard. Knowing that information, my youngest child has never been vaccinated.

I think vaccines, scientifically given, are very good. Polio vaccine, measles vaccines — they all work, but they have to be staged. And as a neurosurgeon, I can tell you that young, developing brains should not be getting a bunch of vaccines all at once. They should be staged in a scientific manner depending on the health of the child. If you have an 18-year-old serviceman perfectly healthy, him not getting a flu vaccine is much different than an 80-year-old with pneumonia. We have to use common sense. And scientific facts.

[Ed. Note: Research in the last decade shows that changes to the developing brain that cause autism occur in utero, in the second trimester of pregnancy, long before a child receives any vaccine.]

What does government accountability look like to you?

Governmental spending decisions need to be open to public scrutiny. That's one of the things, especially with healthcare that I've been saying in my debates. We have a spending problem. So taxpayer money needs to be spent efficiently.

Are we ceding the renewable energy market to China?

America is energy independent for the most part. We have our own nuclear energy. We have our own oil and gas reserves that we use, and we're fine. China does not. That's why China is more vulnerable than the United States. China depends on those renewable energies and green energy — energy positions, which are not reliable energy sources.

The United States has reliable energy sources. So. that's the difference. If you look at China when the Strait of Hormuz was shut down, look at China. They were desperate. I mean, look at all those countries in Southeast Asia. Look what happened to their economies. China was getting oil from Russia. They weren't depending on their green energy programs. So that exposed their system, their energy infrastructure.

Elijah Rakha-Sheketoff contributed reporting.