Texas doctor who promoted Ivermectin as Covid cure suspended

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A doctor in Houston, Texas, has had allegedly been suspended after promoting an uproven drug as a treatment for Covid-19 on Twitter.

The Houston Methodist Hospital said Mary Bowden had used her social media profile to advance “dangerous misinformation which is not based in science”, following a series of tweets in which she praised the effects of ivermectin.

The drug is unproven for use to treat people who have Covid-19, and is typically used for treating livestock with parasitic infections.

Federal US gencies including the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention also advise humans against using ivermectin, which can cause serious side effects such as nausea.

Houston Methodist Hospital continued by saying that Ms Bowden used her Twitter account to “express her personal and political opinions about the Covid-19 vaccine and treatments,” and not science.

“Despite what she has posted, Houston Methodist does not and will never deny care to a patient based on vaccination status,” the hospital said of its doctor, who was “vaccinated, as required of all physicians who practice at Houston Methodist.”

Her lawyer, Steven Mitby, told CNN that Ms Bodwen was not a so-called anti-vaxxer, but believed that “people should have a choice” for treatment to fight Covid-19.

She had theorised on Twitter: “Imagine that your 48 year old husband, the father of your six children, is dying in the ICU and the doctors would rather have him die than try ivermectin.”

Ms Bowden also shared a video report about “negative ractions” to the Covid-19 vaccine – despite such side effects being well documented and researched by the CDC – and wrote “This doesn’t happen after the flu shot”.

The doctor also theorised that “this isn’t America anymore” after she and her assistant were allegedly prevented from using ivermectin to treat a patient for Covid-19. The details of which remained unclear.

In remarks after her suspension by Houston Methodist Hospital, the doctor told Click2Houston.com that the issue of being vaccinated and taking ivermectin, an unproven drug against Covid, “really go against patient autonomy and their right to choose their treatment”.

She added that she felt unvaccinated people were being discriminated, and “that led me to send out an email that I was going to prioritise seeing the unvaccinated”.

Ms Bowden, however, has not been the first medical emoployee to face suspension or punishment for apparently anti Covid vaccine or anti-mask views, with a doctor in Oregon last year suspended after alleging falsely that the disease was nothing more than the “common cold”.

Covid-19 has so far killed nearly 760,000 people in the US, and more than 226 million Americans have had a single dose of a vaccine.