current value. Reports of patients who took Brinkley's suggested treatments showing up sick at another doctor's office began to grow, and eventually Merck & Co. pharmaceuticals, whose medicines Brinkley routinely misprescribed, requested Fishbein take action; the AMA responded that they had no power over Brinkley, save to try to inform the public. The Kansas City Star, which owned a radio station that competed with Brinkley's, ran an unfavorable series of reports on him. By 1930, when the Kansas Medical Board held a formal hearing to decide whether Brinkley's medical license should be revoked, Brinkley had signed death certificates for 42 people, many of whom were not sick when they showed up at his clinic. It is unclear how many more of Brinkley's patients may have become ill or later died elsewhere. The medical board revoked his license, stating that Brinkley "has performed an organized charlatanism ... quite beyond the invention of the humble mountebank". Six months after losing his medical license, the Federal Radio Commission refused to renew his station's broadcasting license, finding that Brinkley's broadcasts were mostly advertising, which violated international treaties, that he broadcast obscene material, and that his Medical Question Box series was "contrary to the public interest". He sued the commission, but the courts upheld the revocation and the case KFKB Broadcasting Association v. Federal Radio Commission became a landmark case in broadcast law. Political career Brinkley reacted to losing his medical and broadcast licenses by launching a bid to become the Governor of Kansas, a political position that would enable him to appoint his own members to the medical board and thus regain his right to practice medicine in the state. He kicked off his candidacy just three days after he lost his medical license, using his radio station to help his campaign. At his side was KFKB's biggest country-music star, Roy Faulkner, who took to the stage with guitar and hat in hand. A populist, Brinkley campaigned on a vague program of public works (a state lake in every county), education (free textbooks for public schoolchildren and increased educational opportunities for blacks), lower taxes, and old-age pensions. He appealed to the immigrant vote by putting German and Swedish-speaking people on the air at KFKB. Brinkley enlisted a pilot with his own plane (Brinkley dubbed it The Romancer) to deliver him in grand style at his campaign rallies. In short, Brinkley was a master of