A statewide battle is underway to determine the professional future of the director of the Texas Medical Board.
Dr. Robert Bredt was a relatively obscure figure until the Texas Medical Board announced that it sought to use him as an expert witness in its case against COVID crusader and Houston ENT Dr. Mary Talley Bowden. The case concerns whether Bowden had the right to attempt to treat Jason Jones with ivermectin while the COVID-19-infected deputy sheriff was hospitalized at Huguely Hospital in Fort Worth.
“Dr. Bredt is the Medical Director of the Texas Medical Board and is an expert in the Board’s procedures, investigation process, and administration of laws and rules, including those pertaining to establishing a physician-patient relationship,” stated the latest round of court pleadings in the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH) filed by the Board. “Dr. Bredt can provide the Honorable [Administrative Law Judge] with clarification on these and other issues. …”
The pleadings reveal that the Board intends to use Bredt to establish whether Bowden had sufficiently established a relationship with Jones before attempting to treat him.
Bredt’s attached CV, which was included to bolster his credibility, noted that he is the Laboratory Medical Director at Planned Parenthood San Antonio.
Just hours after filing the document with the SOAH, State Reps. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) and Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) became incensed by Bredt’s connection to Planned Parenthood and called upon the Board to terminate him.
“Texans expect the Texas Medical Board to uphold the highest standards of ethics and impartiality,” Cain said in a press release. “The fact an individual responsible for regulating the practice of medicine in Texas also works for Planned Parenthood — a criminal organization that profits from murdering babies — stands in direct conflict with the laws of our nation and our state’s pro-life values. This is unacceptable. He must be fired.”
In a letter addressed to the Texas Medical Board, Cain wrote that Bredt’s leadership within an organization that “violates federal statutes that outlaw the shipment and receipt of abortion drugs and abortion-related paraphernalia” undermines the public’s trust, and the Board should terminate him to “preserve its credibility and the public’s trust.”
“Having someone with a leadership role at a criminal organization such as Planned Parenthood simultaneously serving in a prominent regulatory position erodes public trust and creates an undeniable conflict of interest. Anyone associated with Planned Parenthood has no place overseeing the medical profession in the Lone Star State,” Cain said in the press release.
Harrison wrote concurrently to Gov. Greg Abbott, who appoints the Board, asking that his office work with TMB to “immediately remove this individual.”
Harrison did not limit his call to just the Texas Medical Board; instead, he asked the governor to direct all state agencies to “ensure there are no other Planned Parenthood officials employed by any state agency, including in advisory roles.”
The reps’ statements caught national attention.
Ron Severino of the Heritage Foundation wrote in response to Harrison’s post, “In TX the intentional ending of unborn life is not medical care by law and abortionists face criminal liability. Yet the head of TX’s medical regulatory body works for the nation’s largest abortion provider. Fox guarding the henhouse.”
An inactive Twitter account that appears to belong to Bredt reveals a limited sample of his worldviews.
A substantial portion of @RBredt’s Twitter activity focused on the account holder’s disdain for then-President Trump in 2020. The account retweeted disparaging edited images of the 45th president and occasionally hit back at his tweets.
The Board’s action against Bowden has been shrouded in contention since The Dallas Express exposed that members of the Board had been watching Bowden since she sprang onto the national scene for opposing COVID-vaccine mandates in 2021 and that some members who presided over the early stages of the doctor’s case appeared to harbor negative sentiments against her.
Bowden has called on Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to intervene. Her calls were predicated upon what the Board calls a “randomized audit” of Bowden’s continuing education hours just nine days after the Board’s attorneys asked her about her continuing education in court. The ENT signaled her suspicion that the audit was not randomized and asked Texas’s top law enforcement officer to take action.
After years of halted and reduced audits, partially due to the pandemic and other factors, there was less than a .25% chance Bowden or any doctor would be audited this year, DX reported.
Bredt was contacted for comment during the story’s production, but he did not respond by the time of publication.