Doc Suspended for Anti-Vax Views Sues Hospital

An ear, nose, and throat specialist who was suspended by Houston Methodist Hospital last year for “spreading dangerous misinformation” is hitting back at the hospital with a lawsuit.

At a press conference, Mary Talley Bowden, MD, announced that she is seeking access to the hospital’s financial records from the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, implying that the hospital may have generated revenue from its vaccination program.

Bowden was suspended in November 2021 after using her Twitter account to promote the use of ivermectin and to express concerns over the “potential dangers” of the COVID-19 vaccines. She went so far as to say that she would refuse to see vaccinated patients going forward and that all new patients would “have to be unvaccinated.”

In response, the official Twitter account of Houston Methodist Hospital posted a series of tweets explaining that Bowden’s views “are harmful to the community [and] 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.” They added that Bowden had never admitted a patient to their hospital.

Houston Methodist was one of the country’s first hospitals to require that employees get vaccinated. As a result, more than 150 employees resigned or were fired in late June 2021 for refusing to comply with the vaccine mandate. According to another tweet from Houston Methodist, Bowden told the hospital that she herself had received the COVID-19 vaccine.

At her press conference, which was held outside of her private practice office, Bowden said that the lawsuit stemmed from never receiving a response from Houston Methodist after requesting data from its administration. She and publicist Wayne Dolcefino had sent letters to the hospital, inquiring about its financial ties to pharmaceutical companies that manufacture COVID-19 vaccines and how much the hospital has profited since the start of the pandemic.

“How many of your fully vaccinated employees are having breakthrough cases, and of the 2,879 patients that have died in your hospitals, how many of them were refused early treatment?” Bowden said amongst a group of supporters. “Financially, we have a lot of questions: How much have your executives profited from the COVID windfall? Do you have any financial relationships with the vaccine companies? How much are you making from the vaccines?”

She also claimed that she has treated “over 2,000 people successfully as outpatients for COVID.” One such patient was presented at the press conference as one of Bowden’s success stories.

“If she had taken the traditional route, she would be in the hospital or worse right now,” Bowden added, telling the crowd that she had put this patient on high doses of IV steroids, vitamin C, and ivermectin.

“One of my most valuable lessons was to take a critical view of pharmaceutical companies, and not be the first person to prescribe the newest and latest drug until it has stood the test of time and that has served me well in looking at COVID-19 and how we’re treating it,” Bowden noted. “I have no financial ties with any third parties. I do not contract with insurance companies, I don’t contract with the government, I do not take Medicare, I have no financial ties with hospitals, and I have no financial ties with pharmaceutical companies.”

Despite Bowden’s purported commitment to financial transparency, she has been criticized by other doctors on social media who have pointed out the high costs of the therapies she offers at her in-person clinic.

Stefanie Asin, director of public relations for Houston Methodist, told MedPage Today that the hospital has no comment on the case at this time.