Methodist Files Motion to Dismiss: My Response
In response to my defamation lawsuit, Houston Methodist hospital filed a motion to dismiss, as well as a motion to have my response struck from the record. Yesterday the judge listened to our arguments. My attorneys focused on the fact that at the same time they were collaborating with me to publish my COVID data, Houston Methodist hospital publicly declared I was dangerous and harmful to the community. Houston Methodist closed the hearing by comparing my statements on social media, such as “Ivermectin works” and “Vaccine mandates are wrong” to me urging the public to take ingest bleach to kill COVID. Here is my affidavit and our response to their motions.
IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF HARRIS COUNTY
TEXAS 151st JUDICIAL DISTRICT
DR. MARY TALLEY BOWDEN
Plaintiff,
v. Cause No. 2022-44525
THE METHODIST HOSPITAL et al.
Defendants.
AFFIDAVIT OF MARY TALLEY BOWDEN, M.D.
Mary Talley Bowden, M.D., states and deposes as follows, under penalty of perjury:
1. I am Mary Talley Bowden. I swear or affirm that the facts contained in this Affidavit are truthful and accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief based upon documents and information in my possession and control, and my own personalobservations, memory, experiences, knowledge, skill, training and education.
2. I am the Plaintiff in this action. I reviewed the original petition prior to its filing by my counsel in this action. The facts stated my original petition are true and correct.
3. I am a licensed ENT physician. I practice in Houston, Texas. I completed my residency at Stanford University. I am board-certified in both Otolaryngology and Sleep Medicine. I specialize in sinus, sleep and allergy disorders and treat both children and adults. In 2019, I founded BreatheMD, a medical practice focused on airway health. My current CV is attached. 2
4. The Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (“FLCCC”) is 501(c)(3) non-profit founded by a group of leading critical care specialists, dedicated to helping prevent and treat COVID. FLCCC aims to save lives and improve health by advancing protocols based on the latest science, data, and clinical observations. FLCCC’s founding physicians are highly published and world-renowned thought leaders, with deep knowledge and expertise to diagnose and treat COVID-related symptoms. To date, the organization has reached millions of people through its protocols, website, webinars, newsletters, social media, speaking engagements and media appearances. Its protocols are in use by healthcare providers around the world and have helped many thousands of people. I am a clinical advisor to FLCCC.
5. Since January 2020, I have seen and successfully treated over 4,000 patients with the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 (“COVID”). I initially used monoclonal antibodies to treat COVID. But then the Government limited distribution and I didn’t have enough to treat everyone. So I researched Ivermectin very deeply, going to the original study the FDA used to approve it and searching the medical literature for reports of intentional or accidental overdose. I couldn’t find any studies or reports. I also researched the LD50 of Ivermectin. LD50 is a benchmark number indicating the amount of a material, given all at once, which causes the death of 50% (one half) of a group of test animals. The LD50 is one way to measure the short-term poisoning potential (acute toxicity) of a material. The LD50 of Ivermectin is found in the original study submitted to the FDA for approval. Ivermectin has a wide margin of safety. One would have to take 250x the amount prescribed to kill 50% of the test animals. Once I was assured that Ivermectin was safe, I began using it to treat patients. The results were excellent. Throughout the pandemic, I gave my patients my cell phone number and asked them to reach out if they had any problems or if their symptoms worsened. I received an abundance of positive feedback after using Ivermectin and to the best of my knowledge, no one who received early treatment required hospitalization or died.
6. The use of Ivermectin to treat COVID is safe for patients and fully supported by medical evidence, including peer-review studies. The meta-analysis of 95 studies, attached to my Affidavit, conclusively demonstrates that Ivermectin is effective. https://c19ivm.org/meta.html]. The FDA, the CDC, major media and others state that Ivermectin is for animals, and that it is dangerous in humans. This is not true. Ivermectin is actually one of the safest drugs known to man and has been saving humans around the world for decades. I had exceptional success treating patients with Ivermectin.
7. In the course of treating patients, I became increasingly worried about serious side effects from the COVID vaccines that my patients were experiencing. I tracked national data and developed concerns that the vaccines posed significant risks. I felt the government wasn’t being candid about those risks. When vaccine mandates started, numerous patients came to me extremely distraught because they were going to lose their jobs if they did not involuntarily submit to the vaccines. I empathized with these patients and began to speak out against vaccine mandates. I became an opponent of vaccine mandates, and over time, the vaccines themselves. I began sharing my opinions on Twitter, including my view that vaccine mandates are “wrong”.
8. Methodist Hospital and Marc Boom retaliated against me in an unprecedented manner. Without notice, they published a series of false and defamatory statements to the press and on social media and internally in emails to staff, affording me no due process, acting contrary to and with reckless disregard for both the letter and spirit of Methodist’s bylaws, which caused loss of business, substantial injury to my reputation and mental anguish:
[As part of its business, Methodist operates a Twitter account, @MethodistHosp, which had over 23,000 followers in November 2021. [https://twitter.com/MethodistHosp]. Upon information and belief, most of Methodist’sfollowers are medical and other healthcare professionals. ]
9. Methodist and Boom’s Statements were republished locally, nationally and worldwide to millions inside and outside medical community, e.g.:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/health/article/Houston-
Methodist-suspends-River-Oaks-doctor-for-16615892.php
(“Houston Methodist suspends River Oaks doctor for spreading COVID
misinformation”);
https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Mary-Talley-Bowden-
Houston-Methodist-vaccine-16775583.php
(“Former Houston Methodist doctor still licensed after using social media to
spread COVID-19 misinformation”);
https://www.khou.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/houston-methodist-doctor-
resigns-over-anti-vaccine-mandate-pro-ivermectin-tweets/285-cc692887-75f4-41f3-a2cb-
(“Dr. Mary Bowden resigned from Houston Methodist after the hospital said
she was spreading misinformation about COVID-19 on social media. Dr.
Bowden was suspended last week. In a series of tweets, the hospital said she
was spreading ‘dangerous misinformation (about COVID-19 on social
media) which is not based in science’”);
https://cw39.com/news/local/doctor-resigns-from-houston-methodist-after-being-
suspended-for-spreading-misinformation-about-covid/
(“Doctor resigns from Houston Methodist after being suspended for
spreading ‘misinformation’ about COVID-19 methods”);
https://www.kxan.com/news/texas/houston-doctor-suspended-for-spreading-
dangerous-misinformation-on-covid-19/
(“Houston doctor suspended for ‘spreading dangerous misinformation’ on
COVID-19”);
https://www.fox26houston.com/news/houston-doctor-accused-of-spreading-
dangerous-misinformation-by-houston-methodist-hospital-fires-back
(“Houston doctor accused of spreading dangerous misinformation by
Houston Methodist Hospital fires back”);
https://abc13.com/houston-doctor-suspended-dr-mary-bowden-covid-
(“Houston doctor suspended for ‘spreading dangerous misinformation’
responds to allegations”);
https://www.cbs42.com/news/health/coronavirus/texas-doctor-suspended-for-
spreading-dangerous-misinformation-on-covid-19/
(“Texas doctor suspended for ‘spreading dangerous misinformation’ on
COVID-19”);
https://www.kron4.com/news/national/texas-doctor-suspended-for-spreading-
dangerous-misinformation-on-covid-19/
(“Texas doctor suspended for ‘spreading dangerous misinformation’ on
COVID-19”);
https://fox59.com/news/texas-hospital-bans-doctor-for-spreading-misinformation-
(“Texas hospital bans doctor for spreading ‘misinformation’ about
coronavirus”);
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-business-texas-media-health-
e1f97db1cda6335aff1523ebaf389bf7
(“Texas hospital suspends doctor for false COVID information”);
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mary-bowden-suspended-covid-19-
misinformation-vaccinated-patients-texas/
(“Texas doctor suspended for spreading COVID-19 misinformation and
refusing to treat vaccinated patients, hospital says”);
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/suspended-texas-doctor-promoted-
ivermectin-covid-treatment-resigns-hos-rcna5833
(“Dr. Mary Bowden was suspended from Houston Methodist Friday for
‘spreading dangerous misinformation.’ She resigned this week”);
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/11/15/houston-doctor-suspended-
hospital-misinformation-covid/
(“Hospital revokes Houston doctor’s privileges for ‘spreading dangerous
misinformation’ about covid on Twitter”);
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/11/15/texas-hospital-suspends-
doctor-misinformation-covid-vaccines/8633323002/
(“Texas hospital suspends doctor for spreading false information about
COVID-19, vaccines”);
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/15/houston-doctor-suspended-
hospital-spreading-covid-misinformation
(“Houston doctor suspended from hospital for spreading Covid
misinformation”);
https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/13/us/houston-doctor-suspended-covid-
(“Texas doctor suspended for spreading 'misinformation' about Covid-19
submits resignation letter”).
10. Methodist and Boom’s Statements are materially false because:
My treatment protocols, including the use of Ivermectin, and my medical opinions were not and are not harmful to patients or others in the
community.
I have extensive first-hand experience treating COVID. I am considered
an expert by other physicians who believe in outpatient treatment of
COVID. I have kept over 4,000 patients out of the hospital, and no one
who has received early treatment under my care has died. I have had no
serious adverse reactions from using Ivermectin.
I am a clinical advisor for FLCCC. My recommendations to patients were
and are based on reliable scientific/medical evidence, including multiple
peer-reviewed studies, statistical data published by the Department of
Health and Human Services, Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System
(“VAERS”), and the published opinions of renowned medical professionals and prominent scientists, including Dr. Peter A. McCullough, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of health policy at Stanford, Dr. Pierre Kory and Dr. Paul Marik.
I did not once spread any kind of medical misinformation. I did not commit fraud on my patients or those in the community looking for sound medical judgment and advice. I published true facts with a verified scientific basis in fact.
I never published any misleading statements or comments about COVID or Methodist’s hospital system.
I never did anything dangerous or put my patients or anyone else in danger.
11. I never stated to anyone that Methodist refused to see unvaccinated patients. I sent an email to my patients and in part of it mentioned that I had a patient whose urologist at Methodist told her she might need to find a new urologist if she isn’t vaccinated. The chairman of Otolaryngology at Methodist sent me an email about this.He asked me to check my sources before repeating something a patient stated. Two days after my initial email, I sent a subsequent email to my patients telling them that Methodist does not have a policy in place to not care for unvaccinated patients.
12. Taken as a whole, the clear defamatory gist of Methodist and Boom’s Statements is that I am unfit to be a medical doctor, that my medical judgments and advice are unsafe and/or unsound, and that I peddle misinformation, including harmful medical treatments and opinions and, therefore, I endanger patients. To this day, when one googles my name “Mary Talley Bowden”, the story of Houston Methodist suspending me for spreading dangerous misinformation fills the first page of results. The qualities disparaged by Methodist and Boom – my medical judgment, advice, trustworthiness as a physician, intelligence, performance and ability to perform as a licensed medical doctor – are peculiarly valuable to me and are absolutely necessary in the practice and profession of any medical professional. The Statements ascribe to me conduct, characteristics and conditions that are highly prejudicial to me as a doctor.
13. Methodist and Boom’s false Statements were immediately understood by third parties on Twitter and on the Internet to convey the intended defamatory meaningabout me, see,
e.g.: https://crooksandliars.com/2021/11/houston-hospital-suspends-doctor-spreading
(“Why this woman has been allowed to keep her medical license, or to continue tospread dangerous lies on Twitter without being suspended is beyond me. It seems a hospital in Houston has finally had enough of her”);
(“Thanks for standing for the truth and preventing folks from spreadingfalsehoods. It’s one ‘doctor’ undermining the hardwork of 25k employees, andworse, putting everyone’s lives and health at risk”);
(“I applaud the @MethodistHosp for taking action. Q-ackery does not instilltrust. Quite the opposite. Dr Bowden can go back to her Veteranary [sic] practice”);
(“Let’s talk about Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, and those like her, who have goneout of their way to spread disinformation and administer ineffective treatments inthe pandemic”);
(“Thank you @MethodistHosp for standing up for good care, and againstmisinformation from Dr. Bowden (@MDBreathe). None of us are shocked tofind that another antivax grifter is in fact vaccinated”);
(“A Texas hospital says it has suspended the privileges of Mary Talley Bowden,MD (@MdBreathe) – who spread misinformation about Covid-19 on her social media. That’s progress. This isn’t personal Mary, physicians must protect public health and safety”).
14. Methodist and Boom’s false and defamatory Statements caused substantial injury. I lost patients. Both BreatheMD and I received negative reviews on Google. My reputation as a physician was severely compromised. The Statements thrust me into apublic controversy and fundamentally changed my life. I am self-conscious in places and at times I was not before. I fear for my safety and the safety and welfare of my children. I worry about schools, physicians and therapists treating my children differently now because of the damage done to my reputation (for example, my son was not accepted to any of the four private schools he applied to for high school and I was informed by a board member at one of them that it was because of the Statements published by Methodist). Because of the Statements, I was featured in the Houston Chronicle as one of the most controversial Houstonians of 2021. Methodist and Boom’s egregious and unnecessary attacks insulted, humiliated, shamed and traumatized me.
15. As medical providers, Methodist and Boom were well aware that the use of ivermectin to prevent/treat COVID was supported by world-renowned experts, such asDr. Pierre Kory and Dr. Paul Marik, and extensive scientific research and studies.Methodist and Boom reviewed the website of FLCCC. They were aware that ivermectin was an appropriate treatment protocol based upon substantial scientific evidence. Methodist and Boom fabricated the statements in order to intimidate and silence me, and prevent me from advocating a treatment modality that was different than the “accepted” view of the government. Methodist and Boom were heavily invested in the vaccination as the preferred means to treat COVID, touting with pride to be the first hospital in the country to mandate the vaccine for their employees. Significantly, Methodist and Boom knew from the hospital’s own data collected from its patients and from their review of scientific studies and reports about ivermectin and other off-label medications, including VAERS data, that my statements were true and were supported by an abundance of reliable medical evidence, including expert opinions from other renowned medical professionals. Methodist and Boom knew that my use of ivermectin to treat patients with COVID had not harmed a single patient, and that there was no public record of any patient complaints. Moreover, I was collaborating with 2 ENTs at Methodist to publish data related to all the COVID patients I was testing. For Methodist and Boom to say that I was “dangerous”, when Methodist was collaborating with me, was clearly reckless disregard for the truth. Finally, Methodist and Boom deliberately omitted known material facts when they told KHOU-11 that I made “misleading comments” about Methodist’s hospital system. They reviewed the emails. They knew I did not make any statements and that I corrected my patient’s statement when Methodist brought to my attention that it did not have a policy of not treating the unvaccinated.
16. Methodist and Boom’s Statements, the media in which they were published and the timing of publications show that Methodist and Boom harbored an institutional entrenchment, hostility, hatred, extreme and unrelenting bias and ill-will towards my treatment modalities and a blind allegiance to the “party line” concerning treatment of COVID. This bias and prejudice motivated Methodist and Boom to publish intentionally false statements about me. Methodist and Boom intended to inflict harm through knowing or reckless falsehoods.
17. I have reviewed Methodist and Boom’s motion to dismiss, and I respond to the facts stated as follows:
a. I used Twitter to publish statements about COVID treatment protocols, the “vaccines” and vaccine mandates that were 100% true based on available scientific data as well as my own clinical experience. No one forced Methodist and Boom to publish the Statements. They did so to intimate and silence me, and to inhibitmy speech regarding COVID and the vaccines.
b. Methodist granted me privileges on December 17, 2020, well after COVID.
c. One of the most important skills I learned during my residency at Stanford was to evaluate scientific studies and use critical thinking skills to determine if the information is valid – even if peer-reviewed and published, most studies have flaws. When the COVID vaccines obtained emergency use authorization from the FDA, I concluded that the data presented to the FDA was flawed and that the efficacy was presented to look better than it actually was. For example, the claimed effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine (95% effective) was based on relative risk reduction rather than absolute risk reduction. The FDA has stated relative risk reduction is not a valid measurement when presenting data to patients as it exaggerates the effectiveness of a drug and instead recommends using absolute risk reduction. Pfizer’s COVID vaccine clinical data showed the risk of getting COVID (without vaccination) was less than 1% (0.88%). The percentage of vaccinated patients who got COVID was 0.04% and the percentage of unvaccinated patients who got COVID was 0.88%. The relative risk reduction was calculated by dividing 0.04%/0.88% and subtracting that number from 1 (1 -0.04/0.88) to get 95%. However, if you calculate the absolute risk reduction (0.88% -0.04% = 0.84%), you get a dramatically lower and far more realistic number of the vaccine’s true effectiveness.
d. Another example of flawed data in the Pfizer study was the way in which data was collected. After receiving the vaccine, subjects were not systematically tested to see if they were getting COVID. Rather, clinic physicians were allowed to subjectively decide who needed to get tested. Adding to the bias, Brooke Jackson, an employee at one of the Pfizer research centers, revealed that the clinicians were unblinded as to who received the vaccine and who didn’t, meaning that when determining who should get tested for COVID, the physicians knew who had received the vaccine.
e. Another valuable lesson I learned from a mentor of mine at Stanford was to avoid using newly-approved medications until enough time has passed to make sure they are safe. The short time frame of the vaccine study using a technique that was new concerned me. Based on this plus my analysis of the Pfizer study for the vaccine, I had significant concerns about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. I knew my duty to ‘first do no harm’ as part of the Hippocratic Oath was more important thanto follow the FDA.
f. At the start of the pandemic, I was able to provide COVID testing with a very fast turnaround time when testing was hard to find. As a result, my practice did a lot of testing for COVID, and for a period of time, I was using Methodist’s lab to process some of my COVID tests. Throughout 2021, I tracked COVID positives and posted the results online weekly. The evidence showed a dramatic rise in symptomatic COVID cases among those who were vaccinated. I was kicked off a neighborhood Facebook page (West U Information Trading) for posting truthful COVID statistics and heavily criticized by Methodist doctors online, who posted nasty messages about me and to me. This occurred shortly before Methodist and Bom published the Statements.
g. When I signed the attestation, I intended to get the vaccine. I went to a pharmacy and stood in line to get the vaccine. It was taking a very long time, and I couldn’t wait. I decided to come back another day. However, my review of the Pfizer data, my reservations about using and recommending brand-new drugs in general, combined with witnessing first-hand all the breakthrough cases and bad side effects in patients, made me eventually decide not to get it. I also knew that I would not be using Methodist hospital during the pandemic. I had never used Houston Methodist since getting privileges and only had them in case someone I operated on had a serious complication requiring inpatient admission (I only do outpatient surgery). I was not operating during the pandemic and, therefore, did not need to have a hospital for emergency postoperative care.
h. Methodist and Boom knew the vaccines were ineffective and did not work. One internal COVID-19 email to staff stated:
Methodist has a very sophisticated electronic medical records system (Epic) and has the resources to examine the data collected in it. Although Methodist was the first hospital in the country to mandate the vaccine for its employees, Methodist intentionally did not publish its data.
i. In August 2021, the CDC reported adverse effects associated with ivermectin misuse and overdose were increasing with a “five-fold increase” in calls to poison control centers across the country compared to pre-pandemic baseline levels. To my knowledge, these claims turned out to be false. I have treated thousands of patients with ivermectin and none of them have called poison control, ended up in the ER because of side effects, or even discontinued the medication because of side effects. I typically prescribe 0.4mg/kg a day for 5 - 7 days for patients with acute COVID.
j. I never published any unfounded or misleading statements about Methodist. Boom’s Statement to KHOU-11 is false. I had a frantic call from a patient with a history of bladder cancer who received a call from her urologist at Methodist hospital telling her the department was discussing refusing to see patients who weren’t vaccinated. She asked me to find her a new urologist, which I did. Mas Takashima, the head of a different department at Methodist (ENT), emailed me and said it wasn’t true. I spoke to my patient again, who confirmed that what she told me was as I had stated and that I had not misunderstood what she said. However, in the spirit of being fully transparent, I sent out a subsequent email to my patients telling them “I was contacted by Methodist Hospital and informed that they do not have a policy in place to deny care to unvaccinated people.” Further research, told to me by a physician on staff at Methodist who regularly works with transplant patients, revealed that, in fact, Methodist does require vaccination before transplant surgery. I also called their transplant department and the person who answered said they required the vaccination. Additionally, I saw a patient of Methodist medical staff president and cardiologist Stuart Solomon on December 2, 2022. He has a pacemaker that needed a new battery. Dr Solomon (who has been his doctor for 18 years) refused to replace it unless he received the vaccine. A nurse told the patient he could drop dead in 9 weeks if he doesn’t get it replaced.
k. The fact that Methodist knew my judgment and medical advice was not harmful or dangerous is evidenced by the fact that Methodist presented my data at an academic meeting:
l. My decision to shift my practice to treating the unvaccinated is explained in the following message I wrote to my patients on November 20, 2021:
Further the affiant saith not.
I'm on your side, I'm rooting for you to win. You and thousands of courageous doctors like you have been falsely discredited and viciously targeted for daring to speak the truth. I support and commend you.
Houston Methodist is fighting the release of their data because it proves that they are aware of the high death rates in their hospital.