“Why is the Texas Medical Board still fighting a war they’ve already lost? And why are they punishing Dr. Bowden for doing exactly what good doctors are supposed to do, fighting for her patients.” — Dr. Joseph Varon
The Independent Medical Alliance (IMA), a national network of independent physicians, healthcare professionals, and medical researchers, today applauded Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s decision to intervene in support of Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, an IMA Senior Fellow of Otolaryngology and Sleep Medicine, in her case against the Texas Medical Board (TMB), and called on the Board to abandon what it called an outdated, politically motivated campaign against a physician who was trying to save her patients’ lives.
“Why is the Texas Medical Board still fighting a war they’ve already lost?” asked Dr. Joseph Varon, President and Chief Medical Officer of the Independent Medical Alliance. “The Texas Legislature has already spoken. Governor Abbott signed House Bill 25 into law, making Ivermectin available to Texans without a prescription as of December 4, 2025. Texas now recognizes what frontline doctors knew years ago: patients and their physicians, not bureaucrats, should decide what treatments to pursue. So why is the Texas Medical Board still spending taxpayer resources to punish a doctor for prescribing a medication that any Texan can now walk into a pharmacy and request over the counter?”
Attorney General Paxton announced on February 12 that he has not only declined to represent the Texas Medical Board in the case, but has filed a formal legal intervention in support of Dr. Bowden, arguing that the Board’s administrative penalty and public reprimand were issued without consideration of medical expert testimony, ignored the fact that Dr. Bowden was acting in reliance upon both a court order and advice of counsel, and denied her due process.
The case dates to October 2021, when the family of a hospitalized first responder, a Tarrant County sheriff’s deputy on a ventilator and in a medically induced coma due to severe COVID-19, sought a court order directing Dr. Bowden to administer Ivermectin. A state district court granted the order. An appeals court subsequently issued a stay, but Dr. Bowden was not made aware of that stay and continued to provide treatment in good faith. The Texas Medical Board nonetheless issued a reprimand in October 2025, more than four years after the incident, and upheld it in December 2025.
“While it’s wonderful Texas AG Ken Paxton has stepped up to help my fight,” said Dr. Bowden, a Houston-based physician and outspoken advocate for medical freedom and patient rights, “It’s also very sad the Texas Medical Board has spent so much time and resources trying to punish me for attempting to save my patient’s life, using a medication that no longer requires a doctor’s prescription in Texas.”
Dr. Bowden’s case was part of a troubling national pattern in which the medical establishment moved aggressively during the COVID-19 pandemic to shut down physicians who pursued early treatment options outside the narrow protocols endorsed by federal agencies. Doctors who recommended Ivermectin, promoted early outpatient treatment, or questioned the efficacy of official-only treatment pathways were threatened with loss of licensure, hospital privileges, and professional standing, even as the science continued to evolve.
“I know what it’s like to go from hero to target,” continued Dr. Varon. “The media put me on the front page for spending 715 consecutive days in the ICU fighting COVID. My unit had the best survival rates in the country. But the moment I started talking publicly about Ivermectin and early treatment protocols, the same establishment that celebrated me tried to silence me. Dr. Bowden faced the same thing.”
The Independent Medical Alliance is calling on the Texas Medical Board to vacate its reprimand of Dr. Bowden, and the IMA is urging the Attorney General to conduct a full review of every disciplinary action the TMB took against Texas physicians for the use of Ivermectin and other early treatment protocols during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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