Dr. Mary Talley Bowden has directly appealed to Texas Att. Gen. Ken Paxton for action on her case before the state medical board.
“My Hail Mary to @KenPaxtonTX … 14 Pre-trial orders + $175,000 in legal fees defending myself against the Texas Medical Board,” Bowden posted on X.
Bowden then linked to a Substack post in which she wrote, “My attorneys and I have asked Attorney General Ken Paxton to investigate the Texas State Office of Administrative Hearings, the agency handling the Texas Medical Board’s lawsuit against me, for exceeding and abusing its authority.”
Embedded in the Substack post was a letter from her attorneys that alleged that the “TMB (Texas Medical Board) has become an authoritarian menace to the rights and liberties of Texas citizens, improperly injecting political ideology and establishment groupthink into the doctor-patient relationship.”
They also accused TMB of ultra vires actions, a Latin legal term for an entity acting beyond its legal authority, and noted that Bowden, a Houston-based ENT, has been denied basic due process protections by the administrative judge, such as the ability to call witnesses in her defense. The attorneys likewise alleged that TMB has not complied with state law.
Bowden’s counsel announced plans to seek redress in the state courts rather than the administrative courts where the case currently resides. However, her appeal appears to have fallen on deaf ears, as have prior appeals from other actors.
State Rep. Steve Toth (R-The Woodlands) posted a letter on X last month that directly called on Gov. Greg Abbott and Paxton to do something. Toth called TMB “reckless” and echoed Bowden’s arguments about due process. He said TMB did this “[b]ecause she dared to use FDA-approved Ivermectin and saved 6,000 lives in the process.”
The ongoing case was first brought against the Houston doctor by TMB in 2021. It stemmed in part from Bowden prescribing Ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug that she found to be highly effective in the treatment of thousands of cases of COVID-19.
Although the FDA has never approved Ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, it is common practice for physicians to use drugs for “off-label” purposes.
The other part of the case purportedly comes from Bowden’s criticism of vaccine mandates. In January 2021, months before President Joe Biden issued what was in effect a nationwide vaccine mandate through the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration, Houston Methodist Hospital began firing employees for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Contemporaneously, Bowden started tweeting about her belief that vaccine mandates were ineffective. She also announced her plan to treat unvaccinated patients at her clinic. In response, the hospital suspended her privileges.
“I had never set foot in that hospital,” Bowden previously told The Dallas Express. “I had those privileges in case of an emergency.”
“[Houston Methodist] did not even call me. I found out I was having my privileges suspended from a text I got from a reporter,” Bowden added.
The hospital tweeted, “Dr. Bowden, who has never admitted a patient at Houston Methodist Hospital, is spreading dangerous misinformation which is not based in science.”
Bowden then severed all connection with the hospital. The medical center responded by reporting her to the medical board for resigning while under investigation.
However, “Houston Methodist has never provided any evidence I was under investigation. They’ve just said I was under investigation,” Bowden claimed.
After an earlier interview with Bowden and following Toth’s calls for action, DX contacted Paxton’s office seeking comment on why he had not yet taken action and whether he planned to do so. Three weeks have passed since DX reached out, yet Paxton has not responded despite the news agency’s regular follow-ups.
Similarly, Paxton has not publicly responded to Toth’s letter or Bowden’s appeal.
DX also reached out to TMB and every board member.
“The Board is confident that our handling of Dr. Bowden’s case followed all proper processes and procedures in accordance with state statute. Her case has been handled like any other complaint,” TMB’s director of governmental affairs and communication told DX.
Board members Sherif Zaafran, Sharon Barnes, Devinder Bhatia, Michael Cokinos, George De Loach, James Distefano, Kandace Farmer, Robert Gracia, Tomeka Herod, Robert Martinez, LuAnn Morgan, Jayaram Naidu, Satish Nayak, Manuel Quinones, Jason Tibbels, and David Vanderweide did not respond.
Bowden rejected the characterization of this process as normal. She conceded that she was not a legal expert but noted that she had never seen TMB handle a case against a doctor this way. Bowden then reiterated her belief that the board was “trying to interfere with my ability to treat my patients.”
While Paxton does not directly oversee TMB, he does issue legal advice to the board upon request. The AG also wields massive investigative power in the Lone Star State. If there has been political bias or other irregularities in handling this case, Paxton’s office may be best suited to investigate the matter.
Likewise, the Texas State Office of Administrative Hearings is in the executive branch, and the governor appoints its chief. DX reached out to Abbott and Chief Administrative Law Judge Kristofer Monson for comment, but neither responded.
Despite the glacial pace of the TMB case, Bowden has had some legal successes in recent months. She recently brought a lawsuit against the FDA that received attention from major presidential contenders, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who said the FDA was captured by the pharmaceutical companies when asked about it. The case was settled when the FDA agreed to delete misleading social media posts it had made about the legality of prescribing Ivermectin.
The highlighting of Bowden’s record of success in saving lives during the pandemic comes amid a resurgence of questions about the safety and prudence of mandatory measures imposed on people during the pandemic. Dr. Anthonny Fauci recently appeared before Congress and was grilled over the arbitrary nature of the 6-foot social distancing mandates imposed during the pandemic that apparently had no scientific backing.
Likewise, the front page of The Telegraph recently displayed this headline about the alleged danger of the COVID-19 vaccines: “Covid vaccines may have helped fuel rise in excess deaths.”
The corresponding Telegraph story reviewed the results of a Dutch study published in the British Medical Journal that found that COVID-19 vaccine side effects included ischaemic stroke, acute coronary syndrome, brain hemorrhage, cardiovascular diseases, and blood clotting.
