Back in December 2023, the local paper in Martinsburg ran a story about the Republican candidate for the 91st state house district. Martinsburg is the county seat for Berkeley County and one of the 2 Eastern Panhandle counties which are gaining new residents because of housing pressures in the DC metro area, and because they are on a commuter rail line. (The other county is Jefferson County, to its east, where we live.)
The candidate, Dr. Joseph de Soto, seemed like an incredible opportunity for the residents of that district. According to the Martinsburg Journal:
Beginning his career as a combat medic in the U.S. Army, de Soto has dedicated his life to working as a physician. Although he worked while attending college, the money he earned was used to pay for college. He recalled having to choose to use his hard-earned money to either go to school or to pay for rent. Opting for education, he experienced what it was like to be homeless.
Despite these challenges, de Soto earned three dictates, including medicine, pharmacology and national security. He went on to undertake a prestigious fellowship at the National Institutes of Health.
Throughout his career, de Soto has published over 300 papers and was an editor of four medical journals. His contributions to medical science are far reaching, starting with his work for cancer medication development. He said he worked to develop tamoxifen, raloxifene, fulvestrant and olaparib, and his work was recognized any the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Most recently, de Soto said he worked to publish several papers on the SARs-COV-2 virus.
Wow. It’s kind of incredible that someone like that would run for office here. And as it turns out, it was indeed incredible, because he’s evidently done even more:
To hear Dr. Joseph De Soto talk about his professional life, you’d wonder when Hollywood is going to ask for the rights. The presumptive delegate for the 91st District in Berkeley County has described himself as an Army Ranger medic, national security negotiator, a doctor who’s provided free health care to hundreds in West Virginia and the Navajo Nation, former dean of a university, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s Cancer Researcher of the Year.
Well, 2 reporters for Dragline looked into it and it’s, of course, all fake news. Here are some of the representative debunkings:
Claim #1 – De Soto said he’s provided hundreds of people in Berkeley County and in the Navajo Nation with free health care.
FACT: De Soto is not licensed to practice medicine anywhere in the United States.
Despite claiming to have provided health care for people on his website and during appearances on WNRN’s “Eastern Panhandle Talk,” De Soto has no license to practice medicine. He has also advertised himself as a doctor under the name “De Soto Medical LLC” since March of 2024, but only registered this business in May.
While De Soto does hold a Doctor of Medicine degree from Howard University, he never completed the process of obtaining licensure – a requirement for doctors to practice medicine. Per his website, De Soto claims to have helped “300 persons in south Berkeley with free health care who couldn’t afford to go their (sic) own doctor these past 25 years.”
When contacted for comment about a politician pretending to be a licensed doctor, the receptionist at the West Virginia Board of Medicine answered “Oh, De Soto?” adding, “You’re not the only one asking about him.” Executive Director Mark Spangler later confirmed via email that De Soto is not and has never been licensed by the Board.
And this:
Claim #4 – De Soto said using his experience as a college dean, he will reform education in the state, promising to tackle the “woke agenda.” As an example of misguided school priorities, De Soto said he walked into Musselman High Public Library and that “there wasn’t a single book” on math, social science, or science available.
FACT: A representative with Vorhees University, the school where De Soto claims to have been a dean, said De Soto was never a dean there. As for Musselman High public library, a catalog search of their titles came back with 81 books with the word “math” in the title and 1,380 books with “science” in the title.
The representative from Vorhees told Dragline, “He was never a dean. We didn’t even have deans at the time.” The representative did confirm De Soto served as a chair for the Department of Science, Technology, Health and Human Services for the year he worked there.
There’s more and I invite you to read the rest of the Dragline story.
There are 2 issues here. One is that the local paper completely failed. Not one claim was vetted. The second is that too many state level seats don’t have Democratic challenges. The WV Democratic Party failed too, because this might have been a seat to flip.
But in the end, the problem is that the GOP can’t function without telling lies. Here’s a song to close this out: