There is a cost to defending yourself against the Texas Medical Board, and it is far from cheap.

Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, an ENT in Houston, told the Texas Senate Finance Committee on Thursday that she has spent $260,000 in legal fees and other costs, such as Open Records fees, to defend herself in the Texas Medical Board’s (TMB) case. The TMB filed a case against her for attempting to treat a COVID-infected Tarrant County Sheriff’s Deputy during the pandemic.

Although pandemic-era doctors argued over its efficacy, Bowden wanted to treat the sick man with ivermectin. She previously told The Dallas Express that in the several thousand COVID-19 cases she treated, she had found ivermectin to be highly effective when used in the early stages of the illness.

Bowden opened her remarks to the Committee by calling out a perceived logical inconsistency in the TMB’s actions.

“TMB protects the public from dangerous doctors; presumably they think I’m dangerous, yet they are in no hurry to process my case,” she said. “The average time of complaint resolution is 292 days.”

Bowden’s case is now in its third year, and the Board’s attorneys have asked the Administrative Court for several continuances.

While her costs have soared, so have the TMB’s. Documents obtained by Bowden through Open Records showed that the Board has spent tens of thousands on expert witnesses who have not stuck with the case.

“[TMB] paid two experts over $30,000 to testify against me,” she told the Senate.

Court records reviewed by The Dallas Express show that the first witness withdrew because of a health condition. The second witness “chickened out,” Bowden told the senators, and the third witness, Dr. Robert Bredt, exited the TMB after there was public outrage around his extensive work with Planned Parenthood.

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While she called out what she saw as waste and fraud, she also raised concerns about abuse. She reminded the Committee that records showed figures within the TMB had been watching Bowden for years as she stood up against COVID-19 vaccine mandates in 2021.

In one instance reported by DX, a board member who presided over the early stages of Bowden’s case was emailing her colleagues stories about the doctor. During the exchange, the board member seemed to be stifled by another as she prepared to share alleged negative sentiments about Bowden.

Continuing to pull the thread of the lack of impartiality, Bowden explained, “The head of the board [Dr. Sherif Zaafran] … on X proposed that unvaccinated [should pay] for their own care if they caught COVID. He is director of the [Federation of State Medical Boards] which sent out a letter threatening the licenses of physicians who used ivermectin to treat COVID.”

This tweet has since been deleted, but screenshots occasionally resurface.

She noted that although her case concerned her attempted treatment of the sheriff’s deputy at the pleadings of his wife, not necessarily her attempt to treat him with ivermectin, the word “ivermectin” was used 86 times in her deposition.

Zaafran reportedly wrote in a letter to Texas Sen. Bob Hall that “…no licensee has faced discipline or excessive scrutiny from the Board for properly prescribing a particular treatment (including Ivermectin, HCQ, and Budesonide), off-label or not, for COVID-19.”

At the end of her testimony, Sen. Hall (R-Rockwall) discussed with Bowden some of the unique expenses the Medical Board imposes on doctors, aside from legal defense. Hall brought up the fact that Texas is one of the only states where the TMB is the only accreditation agency.

Bowden said that Texas is the most expensive state to get a medical license in the country and that there is a question about how many millions the TMB pays to consultants.

Several state representatives who supported Bowden called for the TMB’s case to be brought to an end, even posing with her for a photo on February 13.

Michelle Evans (pictured right in the image above), a co-founder of Texans for Vaccine Choice, also weighed in. “Dr. Mary Talley Bowden has again proven herself to be a force to be reckoned with. The TMB has abused taxpayer money to persecute her and others, and without her willingness to speak up, this would go unnoticed and unaddressed. Hopefully her testimony will open lawmakers’ eyes and prompt them to rethink this agency and the blank check it has been given by the legislature,” Evans said.

Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) told DX after Bowden’s testimony, “TMB needs to stop dragging its feet and dismiss its case against Dr. Bowden. Conservatives are growing impatient with the agency.”

TMB’s press officer responded to Bowden’s testimony.  Regarding costs, the spokesman told The Dallas Express, “The TMB cannot speak to Dr. Bowden’s specific costs, but we can confirm that the TMB costs for her case are typical of what the Board would spend on any contested case at the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH). The only thing atypical in this case is Dr. Bowden’s repeated and exhaustive attempts to litigate this case via social media instead of the processes proscribed in the statute.” He noted that the duration of the case and the concomitant higher costs are at least in part attributable to the continuances, the first of which he said was requested by Bowden.

The spokesman described the process by which cases are received by the board and the various settlement processes that are undergone before something escalates to the SOAH. He claimed Bowden was offered a settlement offramp multiple times.

Bowden told the senators that she refused settlement because she wanted her name cleared.

The press officer then generally redescribed the facts of the case and allegations against Bowden. He followed up by affirming that “The fact that the drug was ivermectin in and of itself is not the controlling issue and never has been in any case before the Board. The Board has made it clear that off-label use of prescriptions is permissible in Texas.”

He concluded his remarks by recalling another issue that the doctor or the senators did not raise in the densely packed six minutes of testimony and questioning.

“Finally, it is alleged that Dr. Bowden resigned instead of participating in a peer review process with her employer when she learned the medical executive committee was suspending her privileges and beginning an investigation into concerns about her conduct. Statue provides clear guidance to the Board in such instances and again, the Board is well within its duty in attempting to hold Dr. Bowden accountable for her choices. The Board would do the same with any other physician.”

This is a separate issue not connected to Bowden’s attempted treatment of any COVID-19 patient. Instead, it regards her relationship with Houston Methodist Hospital that soured when she began publicly criticizing COVID vaccine mandates and she announced her intent to treat unvaccinated patients in her private practice. The hospital responded by suspending her privileges at its facilities.

Bowden has addressed this to The Dallas Express before. She claimed Houston Methodist reported her to TMB for resigning while under investigation but she was adamant that the rule allegedly forbidding such action was inapplicable to her because “that exists to prevent shady [dealings] … doctors doing something bad and then trying to flee.” Bowden added, “Houston Methodist has never provided any evidence I was under investigation. They’ve just said I was under investigation.”

Bowden previously said she was not “employed” at Houston Methodist as the officer claimed.

“I had never set foot in that hospital,” Bowden said. “I had those privileges in case of an emergency.”