The Texas Medical Board is vowing to “vigorously” defend itself against Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, which is legally supporting a doctor who is suing the licensing board in an attempt to reverse its reprimand against her.
The board reprimanded Dr. Mary Talley Bowden in October after she prescribed ivermectin in 2021 to a COVID-19 patient in a Fort Worth hospital where she did not have privileges. Bowden asked the board to reconsider its finding, but the board issued a final order upholding its decision in December. Bowden then sued the medical board in January to have the reprimand overturned.
Paxton’s office last week filed a petition to intervene in Bowden’s lawsuit against the board.
“I will not stand by as Dr. Bowden has her Constitutional rights trampled and ability to serve her patients impeded with an illegal reprimand,” said Paxton in a news release. He called Bowden a “champion for health freedom” and said he filed the intervention “to ensure administrative agencies don’t violate the rights of licensed professionals in Texas.”
The medical board defended its actions in a statement Thursday. It accused Paxton’s office of making “numerous inaccurate statements” related to the case, but the statement did not detail what those alleged inaccuracies are.
“TMB has provided ample justification for disciplining Dr. Bowden for attempting to treat a patient at a hospital in which she did not have privileges. TMB intends to vigorously contest these claims and will stand firm to ensure hospitalized Texans receive care from doctors who are authorized to be on hospital premises,” the agency’s statement said.
Paxton’s office accused the medical board of reprimanding Bowden without consulting medical expert testimony. The 19-member board includes 12 physicians and seven members of the public. All are appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott.
Bowden told The Texas Tribune she was pleased with Paxton’s support.
“It’s been a four and a half year fight,” Bowden said. “I’m thrilled and I hope we can put this matter to rest. It’s not just important for myself but for patients.”
It’s not lost on political observers that Paxton’s support of a celebrity vaccine skeptic a week before early voting begins could help win him more support. He is challenging incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in what is expected to be a close GOP primary.
Primary elections tend to attract fewer voters making them exceptionally tight races that typically result in a runoff, so any appeal to special interests of a political party can help bring more voters to the polls, said Matthew Wilson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.
“Ivermectin is the MAHA wonder drug,” said Wilson, referring to the Make America Health Again movement embraced by vaccine skeptic and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Anybody who was prescribing ivermectin to patients is going to be a hero in MAHA circles. Intervening on her behalf, obviously, sends a strong signal to that contingent.”
Some people opposed to a COVID-19 vaccine began turning to ivermectin which is widely available without a prescription in feed stores because it is frequently used as a dewormer for livestock. The drug has become a symbol for the right’s medical freedom movement and last year, Texas became the fifth state to allow the sale of ivermectin by pharmacies without a prescription, thanks to the efforts of anti-vaccine activists. While there are similar efforts currently active in other Republican states, the Utah legislature rejected a measure to make ivermectin more widely available this month.
Paxton’s office has declined to return requests for comment on the medical board’s response and on the issue of why he is deciding to go after a state board that his office is charged with defending.
It’s not the first time he’s gone against a state agency. In October, Paxton filed a legal maneuver to side with the Republican Party of Texas after the party sued the Secretary of State’s office over Texas’ election laws allowing open primaries. In response, the agency’s attorneys said Paxton and the GOP’s filing was “brazen and misguided” and that filing the joint motion against the agency so soon before the March 3 primaries threatens to “confuse voters, unduly burden election administrators, or otherwise sow chaos or distrust in the electoral process.”
Randall Erben, an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, says Paxton has the right to decline to defend a state agency, but “the fact that he has the authority to do it, does it mean it’s right? Does it mean the public doesn’t have an issue with it?”
In 2021, Houston Methodist Hospital suspended Bowden, a COVID-19 vaccine critic, for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus, an action that prompted her to file a $25 million defamation suit that was ultimately dismissed.
That same year, Bowden had prescribed ivermectin, an anti-parasitic used in animals and humans, as the treatment for Jason Jones, a Tarrant County sheriff’s deputy who was hospitalized at Texas Health Huguley hospital after he had been diagnosed for COVID-19 a week prior.
His wife sued the hospital to allow Bowden to treat Jones with ivermectin. Within days, a district court sided with Jones’ wife and ordered Texas Health Huguley to give Bowden privileges at the hospital to treat Jones, according to the Texas Medical Board ruling from October . The hospital appealed and also asked Bowden to apply for privileges at the hospital. After the appeals court temporarily stayed the trial court’s order pending a final decision, Bowden emailed the hospital telling them she would be sending a nurse to administer the ivermectin dose and included a brief request to be granted treating privileges at the hospital, according to the Medical Board ruling. The hospital responded that Bowden did not have privileges and needed to complete an application for privileges; less than an hour later, Bowden replied to the hospital that she was sending a nurse to the hospital within 30 minutes, according to the ruling. By the time Bowden’s nurse arrived, the hospital had not granted Bowden’s privileges and hospital staff then called Fort Worth police, the Medical Board said. The appeals court ultimately ruled that the trial court had no legal authority to order the hospital to grant privileges to Bowden.
Jones died more than a year later in April 2023. His cause of death was not disclosed in his obituary.
The state medical board in its October ruling noted, “Respondent knew she did not have privileges to administer her prescription to Patient” and the panel worried Bowden “may repeat her attempt to disregard a hospital’s rules on physician credentialing and treat an inpatient at a facility where she is not privileged.”
Disclosure: Southern Methodist University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.
