From 1989 to 1995, Wulsin was the Director of Epidemiology in the City of Cincinnati's Health Department. She also worked in various capacities for the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1986 to 2001. In April 2003, Wulsin founded SOTENI International, a
non-profit organization that focuses on fighting
AIDS in
Africa. It has its headquarters in Cincinnati and an office in
Kenya. SOTENI assists those women and orphans who have been most affected by the AIDS pandemic. "Soteni" is a
Swahili word which translates as "all of us". On January 26 2011, during the award of a charter to the
Mount Kenya University in Thika, Wulsin was installed as its first Chancellor.
Politics Her interest in public health and larger social issues led her into politics, and she has run for office as a representative of her district to Congress three times, but has not been elected. This is the closest in 42 years that a Democrat has come to winning a full term in the historically Republican 2nd District. The last Democrat to win this district for a full term was future
Governor Jack Gilligan, who held it for one term after being swept into office by the Democratic landslide of 1964. Wulsin carried
Pike and
Scioto counties by wide margins and narrowly carried
Brown County. She defeated Schmidt in the 2nd's share of
Hamilton County, by far the largest portion of the district. Schmidt had won Hamilton County during her special election victory against Hackett. Schmidt carried her home
Clermont County by over 8,000 votes, enabling her to keep the seat.
2008 election for Congress In the 2008 election cycle, Wulsin ran as the Democratic candidate for the Second District of Ohio after winning the primary. She defeated Cincinnati attorney Steve Black by 28 points in the March 4 primary. In the general election, Wulsin faced two opponents,
Republican incumbent
Jean Schmidt and independent candidate
David Krikorian. Polls showed the race to be close between Wulsin and Schmidt, with Krikorian attracting a significant amount of support for an independent candidate. The three candidates engaged in three debates. The first took place at the Anderson Community Center on October 6, 2008, the second was aired on
WCET on October 22, and the third was aired on Channel 12's
Newsmakers program on October 26. All three debates focused mainly on the economy, the financial crisis, and local issues. On November 4, the incumbent Representative Schmidt defeated Wulsin in the general election.
2005 Malariotherapy controversy During the 2006 and 2008 electoral campaigns, Wulsin's participation in a 2004 study for Cincinnati's
Heimlich Institute was criticized by her opponents.
Henry Heimlich had directed a three-year study in China, ending in 1996, that evaluated the use of malaria infection in fighting AIDS. She concluded that "the preponderance of evidence indicates that neither malaria or immunotherapy will cure HIV/AIDS." That year the Republican candidate,
Jean Schmidt, in a tight race with Wulsin, tried to capitalize on the controversy in a fundraising letter that incorrectly suggested that the doctor had been directly involved in experiments using malariotherapy. This was a distortion of her literature review study. == Personal life ==