Republican U.S. Rep. Debbie Lesko has agreed to take down campaign signs falsely asserting her Democratic opponent, Hiral Tipirneni, is a "fake doctor" after a medical group that backed Lesko pressed her on the issue.

The reversal comes days after Tipirneni, a licensed physician and cancer-research advocate, strongly pushed back on the signs, calling Lesko's tactics "despicable" in a meeting Thursday with the editorial board of The Arizona Republic.

Lesko relented after ARMPAC, the Arizona Medical Political Action Committee, which has endorsed her, told Lesko in a meeting they viewed the "campaign signs as an insult to the medical profession, discounting the education and training required of physicians to become licensed and credentialed."

The group said Lesko agreed to take down the signs afterward. ARMPAC maintained its Lesko endorsement.

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In a tweet Saturday, Tipirneni called the signs slanderous and said Lesko "needs to remove her ads parroting the same lies. Voters deserve better from their representatives."

Lesko based her attack on the fact Tipirneni works now as an advocate rather than as an emergency room physician, as she did earlier in her career. She suggested Tipirneni made the switch after a medical malpractice lawsuit.

Tipirneni said that case was settled without her involvement and didn't lead to disciplinary action. She moved into advocacy after losing her mother and 7-year-old nephew to cancer within two years.

Tipirneni said she helped organize a national drive to bring thousands of South Asians into the marrow donor network in an effort to help her nephew during his yearlong battle with leukemia.

"Unfortunately, we didn't find him a match that worked well," she said. "He ended up succumbing to his disease. But as a result of that work we have gotten stories of people who found matches they were able to find for their family members because of that."

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Tipirneni said the experience left her wanting to spend more time with her own children, which research advocacy allowed.

At The Republic, Lesko acknowledged Tipirneni is licensed but said her campaign image in medical apparel is bothersome.

"The thing that I found very disingenuous is that in all of Hiral's commercials, she's very front and center — she's wearing like, you know, doctor outfits, scrubs, working on patients — but she hasn't worked on any patients ... for over a decade," Lesko said.

"I think it's disingenuous to the voters and deceptive to the voters to portray so much like, 'I am this practicing doctor, I'm working on patients.' You haven't practiced for over a decade. So I wanted to point that out to the voters."

Tipirneni said it's characteristic of the politics the public detests.

"I'm really proud of the fact that I earned my medical degree," Tipirneni said, noting that she has maintained an active medical license in Arizona for more than 20 years.

"I took the Hippocratic oath," she continued. "That does not change over time. And it is not disingenuous because I have made it clear time and time again, both on my website and in town halls and whenever I speak to anybody, that I am a former ER physician, that I am not in medical practice anymore. I have made that clear."

Lesko and Tipirneni are locked in a rematch of the April special election in Arizona's 8th Congressional District. Lesko won that race by 5 percentage points in a district where Republicans have a 17-percentage point registration advantage and where Democrats haven't won a congressional race since 1980.

The pair have essentially battled for the Nov. 6 election ever since.

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