COVID doctor says hospital 'retaliated' over vaccines and Ivermectin
Emily Miller
Texas Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, who treats patients with COVID, is filing a $25 million defamation lawsuit against Houston Methodist Hospital and its CEO, Dr. Mark Boom, on Monday in Harris County District Court.
Bowden alleges that the hospital “retaliated” against her after she publically spoke out against vaccine mandates and for treating COVID-19 with the medication Ivermectin.
She claims Methodist posted statements about her on Twitter and to the media that damaged her reputation as a medical professional.
Bowden is in private practice and had privileges with Methodist until the public disagreement on treatment. Bowden, who did her residency at Stanford University, has treated over 4,000 patients with COIVD-19 since March 2020.
“Methodist is probably the most well-respected hospital in Houston, so for them to imply I’m ‘dangerous’ is a scar on my reputation as a doctor,” Bowden told me in an interview on Sunday. “They changed my life — they made me infamous. I’m self-conscious now, wherever I go.”
She is represented by lawyers Steven S. Biss of Charlottesville, Virginia and Madhu S. Sekharan of Cypress, Texas. The lawsuit asks for a jury trial in Harris County.
“Doctors have an ethical obligation to do what is in the best interests of their patients - even if bullied by hospitals and their administrators,” Dr. Bowden said about her decision to sue. “This case is to protect free speech for myself and other doctors.”
Bowden is board-certified in both Otolaryngology and Sleep Medicine. She has been practicing in Houston since 2003 and opened her own business, BreatheMD, in 2019.
The hospital did not contact her directly after she made public her medical opinions on treating COVID. Instead, it posted on Twitter and sent a statement from Boom to a Houston reporter. The hospital’s tweets mentioned in the lawsuit include these:
Houston Methodist
@MethodistHosp
Dr. Bowden, who has never admitted a patient at Houston Methodist Hospital, is spreading dangerous misinformation which is not based in science. (4/5)
November 12th 2021
67 Retweets399 Likes
Houston Methodist
@MethodistHosp
These opinions, which are harmful to the community, do not reflect reliable medical evidence or the values of Houston Methodist, where we have treated more than 25,000 COVID-19 inpatients, and where all our employees and physicians are vaccinated to protect our patients. (2/5)
November 12th 2021
42 Retweets281 Likes
After its public statements about her, Methodist wrote a letter to her about investigating her hospital privileges. She resigned.
Her attorney Biss represents public figures and private individuals in high-profile defamation cases.
“Hospitals should stay out of the opposition research business,” Biss told me in an interview. “I have never seen a hospital aggressively attack a medical professional using Twitter as a weapon. This was very unbecoming of Methodist.”
Spokespeople for Methodist Hospital and Boom did not respond to requests for comment.
Vaccine effectiveness
The lawsuit says Bowden:
became increasingly worried about side effects from vaccines that her patients were experiencing… and developed concerns that the vaccines had significant risks.
She felt the government wasn’t being candid about those risks.
Bowden was sharing her patient data with Methodist Hospital. She told researchers there in July 2021 that she had “breakthrough COVID cases” among her vaccinated patients. In an e-mail shared with me, Bowden wrote two doctors at Methodist this:
I am seeing a huge uptick in positive cases but what is really surprising is that majority of positive cases are in fully vaccinated people and the majority of these people have symptoms. Any buzz about this at Methodist or elsewhere that you have heard of?--
Dr. Omar G. Ahmed, MD, responded, “I think a majority of the patients hospitalized are unvaccinated. I guess the goal of the vaccine is to prevent against severe disease.”
Bowden said that in the months that followed, “the number of positive patients who were vaccinated outnumbered the unvaccinated.” She said she spoke out because she was “seeing the lack of efficacy and dangerous side effects of the vaccine.”
She said 10% of her current patients come to her for “ongoing side effects from the vaccine.”
Ivermectin
Bowden focuses on what she calls “multi-drug, early treatment” for COVID patients. She said that her current protocol is prescribing Ivermetic, Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin. She also tells patients to take Vitamins C and D and Zinc.
The doctor said that none of her COVID patients who have received these early treatments have been hospitalized or died.
The FDA cautions against doctors prescribing Ivermetic and Hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID.
Read my 10-part series on Bowden’s patient, Deputy Sheriff Jason Jones, who sued a hospital for the right to try Ivermectin for COVID.
The lawsuit
The lawsuit to be filed is attached below. Here are some excerpts:
When vaccine mandates started, she had numerous patients come to her extremely distraught because they were going to lose their jobs if they did not involuntarily submit to the vaccine.
Dr. Bowden empathized with these patients and began to speak out against vaccine mandates. She became an opponent of vaccine mandates, and over time, the vaccines themselves.
As time went on, Dr. Bowden became increasingly worried about side effects from vaccines that her patients were experiencing. Dr. Bowden developed concerns that the vaccines had significant risks...
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