DR. PAUL Gosar is a dentist.
He is a Republican congressman representing the state of Arizona.
He also supports former President Trump and protested the declaration by the U.S. House of Representatives that Joe Biden won the presidency.
That was on January 6 just before demonstrators tried to enter that august chamber to protest the same.
Representative Gosar promoted Trump’s “Stop the Steal” protest and has called President Biden “an illegitimate usurper” while the demonstrators who stormed the U.S. Capitol were “peaceful patriots.”
An article in The Washington Post by Ben Terris relates how the congressman has tweeted about Ashli Babbitt, a woman who was shot and killed by a policeman while she was trying to enter the Speaker’s Lobby.
The woman was a supporter of QAnon, a group that, among other things, does not believe in anti-COVID vaccination.
The congressman has alleged that the policeman was “lying in wait” to shoot Ms. Babbit during what the article called the January 6 insurrection.
Representative Gosar has been in the news before. He is the only member of Congress to boycott a visit from Pope Francis in 2015. He disagreed with the papal view that human activities are driving climate change. The pope was trying to “guilt people into leftist policies,” the congressman said.
“If oral health is a good indicator of overall health, it’s fair to wonder about the state of the Republican Party with Gosar as a mouthpiece,” writes Ben Terris in The Washington Post.
The article is an interesting footnote to dentistry and American politics.
So, what happened between then and now?
In 2001, before becoming congressman, Dr. Gosar was the 2001 Dentist of the Year of the Arizona Dental Association of which he became president from 2004 to 2005.
“Needless to say, his experience as a dentist has made him well equipped to deal with the daily challenges of life in the federal government,” the Dentaltown magazine wrote in 2011.
In 2020, Congressman Gosar supported the repeal of a 1945 U.S. law that exempted health and dental insurance companies from federal antitrust law, putting dentists in some control over insurance claims.
“That was the holy grail,” Dr. David Lurye, a retired dentist from Colorado, told The Washington Post.
“No matter what else Paul does, he’ll have clout with some dentists who will point to this, as if the violation of ethical norms is a small price to pay,” said Dr. Lurye who is an acquaintance of the congressman for 20 years.
Still, not many are impressed. The ADA has suspended future contributions to the political activities of Congressman Gosar. The ADA largesse to the congressman was substantial, over $75,000 since 2010.
The ADA changed its mind after three of Gosar’s siblings called on the ADA to severe ties with the congressman.
America’s largest dental organization said it only supports politicians who are aligned with the association’s core values of integrity, diversity and inclusion, according to Vice News.
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Dr. Joseph D. Lim is the former Associate Dean of the UE College of Dentistry, former Dean of the College of Dentistry, National University, past president and honorary fellow of the Asian Oral Implant Academy, and honorary fellow of the Japan College of Oral Implantologists and Honorary Life Member of Thai Association of Dental Implantology. For questions on dental health, e-mail jdlim2008@gmail.com or text 0917-8591515./PN
