Dr. Mary Talley Bowden has become something of a cause célèbre among horse-paste eaters.  A martyr for the cause, they’ll tell you she was fired from her job at a Texas hospital because she supported ivermectin use; in fact, she resigned after she was suspended for giving medical advice online to people she had not examined, and that advice was about ivermectin.  (The more relevant aspect of the story is the dispensing medical advice to patients she didn’t examine, but whatevs.)

Then they’ll tell you that she is having her medical license pulled in Texas because she actually dispensed ivermectin to a patient.  First, laugh at the part where Texas would pull a doctor’s license for prescribing what virtually every Republican leader in the state ballyhooed as a miracle cure.  But note that Bowden’s license is under review for treating a different patient she hadn’t examined in a hospital where she did not have privileges to practice.

The Texas Medical Board will decide the fate of the Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist–oh, you thought she was a virologist or epidemiologist or another specialist who understood the spread of novel viruses, huh?–because she prescribed ivermectin to Jason Jones, a sheriff deputy in Tarrant County who contracted Covid in September 2021 (long after the vaccine was available) and was intubated after being placed in a medically-induced coma at Huguley Hospital.  Convinced conventional medicine was failing her husband–and with the Big Bad Hospital refusing to administer horse paste to treat coronavirus–wife Erin turned to Bowden to get a prescription for ivermectin, which Bowden reportedly supplied without examining Jason Jones, who was in a medically-induced coma.  According to some accounts, Bowden issued a written prescription and emailed a copy to Erin, who had it filled at a local pharmacy.

Blocked by the hospital from having a nurse apply the cream, Erin claims she applied the medication to her husband surreptitiously and voila! her husband miraculously got better!  Dr. Bowden’s a hero!  Hurrah, Dr. Bowden!  (For the record, Bowden claims she did not know Erin secretly applied the cream to her husband.)

Nevermind the modern medical care her likely-unvaccinated husband received at the hospital from a team of professionals that had learned the most effective ways of dealing with the coronavirus in the course of the pandemic.  And excuse the spurious causality of applying a dab of anti-parasite cream to a patient with a full-blown pulmonary infection and his eventual recovery:  Dr. Bowden is a goddamn American hero for her principled stand and should not be punished; she should be hailed!

Now a prominent anti-vaxxer–a recent tweet features an unsupported claim about increased myocarditis in children who got the vaccine without noting the many-fold increase of the condition in children who get the virus–Bowden is facing a disciplinary hearing in front of the Texas Medical Board for treating a patient at a facility where she did not have privileges and for prescribing a drug to a patient she did not examine.  She is not being persecuted because she an out-of-the-box, unorthodox thinker who prescribed ivermectin.  She’s (potentially) being punished for being a licensed professional and not following the regulations governing those licensed professionals in that state.

The Texas Medical Board, a state agency, has been very careful to point out that the administration of ivermectin to treat coronavirus is not at issue in this case; Bowden’s intentional and repeated violation of its rules of practice are.  That message is not one that Bowden and her supporters will likely accept because as we see with another ivermectin advocate, it’s not you being held responsible for your misdeeds; it’s the Deep State/establishment agents plotting against you.

Bowden isn’t a martyr.  She is not a hero.  She is Trump in a labcoat:  someone who thinks the rules don’t apply to her because she knows best–better than anyone.  A Very Big Brain.  She, and him, should be punished for their malfeasance.