Houston Methodist suspends Dr. Mary Talley Bowden over ivermectin and vaccine-mandate tweets
On November 12, 2021, Houston Methodist Hospital publicly announced it had suspended ENT specialist Dr. Mary Talley Bowden's admitting privileges after she tweeted opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and said she was treating patients with ivermectin.
Bowden, a Houston ear-nose-throat physician, tweeted on Nov. 11–12, 2021 that COVID-19 vaccine mandates were 'wrong' and that ivermectin had been 'nearly 100%' effective in her outpatient practice. Houston Methodist responded publicly on Twitter that same day, stating Bowden was 'spreading dangerous misinformation which is not based in science,' that her privileges had been suspended pending a peer-review hearing, and that ivermectin was 'not a treatment for COVID-19.' Bowden had never admitted a patient to the hospital. She resigned her privileges on Nov. 13, 2021 rather than face the peer-review process. The episode was widely covered and became a template for later hospital actions against physicians who publicly dissented from official COVID guidance.