The Texas Medical Board has initiated a “randomized audit” against a physician who sprung to national attention for opposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates after years of freezing audits.
“During my deposition on 10/8/24, the lawyer for TMB asked me if I was up to date on my CME (continuing medical education) hours. I said I was as far as I knew. Nine days later, on 10/17/24, I received an audit notice from TMB for my CME. I’ve never been audited before, and it’s hard for me to believe this happened randomly,” Dr. Mary Talley Bowden told The Dallas Express.
Internal documents obtained via Public Information Requests reveal that the decision to audit the Houston ENT and 47 other doctors was made on October 15, 2024.
These records indicate that audits are typically conducted less than a handful of times per year in batches ranging from a few dozen to no more than a couple hundred auditees at a time. The batch that included Bowden was the smallest audit in 6 years.
Notably, audits had been “halted” or “held” for over three years “due to COVID-19.”
Records show that after the spring of 2019, an audit was not completed until the spring of 2022. Since audits resumed, they have not been consistent; two were skipped, and one was reduced in size this year due to what the record calls “CE broker roll out.”
CE stands for continuing education.
CE Broker is a website that helps keep track of doctors’ “continuing education” programs, which they are required to engage in for the duration of their careers. The medical board website indicates that doctors are not required to use CE Broker unless they are under an audit, in which case they are only required to use it for the duration of the audit.
Depending on the source, approximately 70,000 physicians are currently working in Texas. The Board’s audit policy document indicates that the audit manager should “randomly audit 2% of physicians who register each quarter;” however, this has not been consistently executed in recent years. In effect, there was only a .25% chance that any physician would be audited in 2024.
Members of the Texas Medical Board have long been at odds with Bowden.
Documents obtained by The Dallas Express revealed that board members and staff had been watching Bowden since her initial fallout with Houston Methodist Hospital in 2021 when she repeatedly criticized vaccine mandates. The hospital responded by publicly criticizing her and suspending her admitting privileges. She then cut all ties with the hospital.
Text messages obtained by DX appeared to reveal that board members who presided over the initial stages of the case the Board brought against Bowden hold negative sentiments about her.
However, the case against the doctor did not focus on her opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates but on her attempted treatment of an ailing Fort Worth sheriff’s deputy with ivermectin.
Deputy Jason Jones was hospitalized with COVID at Texas Huguely Hospital in Fort Worth in 2021. Bowden had found ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug known for its safety in humans, effective when used early in the treatment of COVID-19 during her work with thousands of COVID patients at her private practice.
Bowden attempted to treat Jones at the pleadings of the deputy’s wife. However, the hospital thwarted her. After a legal battle, Bowden did not treat Jones.
Jones was released from the hospital sometime later but never fully recovered and eventually died.
The case was brought against her in 2023 and fundamentally revolved around whether Bowden had the right to attempt to treat Jones, DX reported.
Prominent lawmakers have called for the case to be brought to an end.
Rep. Tony Tinderholt (R-Arlington) has joined the call, asking Abbott and Paxton to intervene in the matter and “investigate and hold … TMB accountable for their abuse of a medical professional who saved lives!”
Bowden also made national headlines when she sued the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for misleading the public about the efficacy and legality of ivermectin.
Initially, a federal district court rejected Bowden’s case. However, after some legal wrangling and an appeal to the Fifth Circuit, the legal winds appeared at her back.
Ultimately, the FDA settled the case and agreed to remove some of their offending missives, including a social media post that read, “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it,” which linked to an article titled “Why You Should Not Take Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.”
The Texas Medical Board responded to a request for comment just after publication time. The president of the board, Dr Sherif Zaafran, reaffirmed that the auditee selection process is randomized and, “TMB staff runs an internal report from our licensee database that pulls a random selection of physicians based only on their license expiration date and no other criteria is considered… Please note that in the past we have audited our own Board members and staff when they came up on the list.”
Responding to a question about whether the audit was connected to the board’s case against Bowden he said, “A licensee’s current or previous history with TMB Enforcement is not something that is reviewed as part of the selection process. Our staff does not check to see if an individual selected has an active investigation or Board order.”