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Senator Bernie Sanders invoked the indicted pharmaceutical executive Martin Shkreli in a fund-raising email linking campaign finance and the availability of affordable health care to suggest he is stronger on the issues than Hillary Clinton.

“What is stopping us from guaranteeing free, quality health care as a basic fundamental right for all Americans? I believe the answer ties into campaign finance reform,” Mr. Sanders said in the email, which went out this week. “The truth is, the insurance companies and the drug companies are bribing the United States Congress.”

He said that he wants to make “health care a right for every American,” and that the health care industry is “flooding my opponents with cash.”

“Now, I don’t go around asking millionaires and billionaires for money. You know that,” Mr. Sanders wrote. “I don’t think I’m going to get a whole lot of contributions from the health care and pharmaceutical industries. I don’t like to kick a man when he is down, but when some bad actors have tried to contribute to our campaign, like the pharmaceutical C.E.O. Martin Shkreli who jacked up the price of a lifesaving drug for AIDS patients, I donated his contribution to an AIDS clinic in Washington, D.C.”

He went on to say that Mrs. Clinton, the Democratic Party’s front-runner for president in most polls, has received “millions of dollars from the health care and pharmaceutical industries” and more this campaign cycle those sectors than did the top three Republican presidential candidates combined.

“Let’s not be naïve about this, maybe they are dumb and don’t know what they are going to get?” Mr. Sanders added. “But I don’t think that’s the case, and I don’t believe you do, either.”

Mr. Sanders has pledged not to run negative ads, but has struggled at times to maintain an issues-based approach. His aides recently took down a digital ad that described Mrs. Clinton as being captive of big banks after reporters noticed it.

Mrs. Clinton has received many hundreds of thousands of more dollars from the health care industry than Mr. Sanders has, according to breakdowns from the Center for Responsive Politics. She was also deeply critical of Mr. Shkreli over the increased cost of a vital AIDS drug when the issue first surfaced in the news media.

In a statement, Christina Reynolds, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Clinton, said her candidate “takes a back seat to no one when it comes to fighting to expand quality, affordable health care coverage for all Americans. She has spent her entire career standing up to the insurance industry and drug companies — and she has the scars to prove it.”

She pointed to Mrs. Clinton’s effort on a universal health care initiative in 1993 when her husband Bill Clinton was president, and noted the Children’s Health Insurance Program grew out of that. She also said Mrs. Clinton wants to improve on the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act.

Asked about the tone of the fund-raising email, a spokesman for Mr. Sanders, Michael Briggs, noted he had criticized her on the debate stage, and replied: “Taking factual note of the huge role the health care industry is playing in Secretary Clinton’s campaign is consistent with the senator’s honest and straightforward critique of her Wall Street donors. These are matter-of-fact contrasts between the kind of contributions that are going to the two candidates. Voters have every right to consider how a candidate’s donations would affect policies.”