Dr. Mary Bowden

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29:10Can you remember any cases along the way that were pivotal, either didn't go the way you thought, or it gave you new insight about what to do going forward? Well, yeah, there was one case where it was a VA. This patient came in with very subtle swelling of the soft palate. And I was suspicious of a tumor. I ordered the MRI. I was very proud of myself because he had a huge tumor in there. Wow. I left that. So you do a rotation. So you spend several months. And the patient ended up getting an operation. It was a benign tumor, but it was big. Ended up getting an operation and ended up hospitalized for six months.

29:55Wow. Died. And I'm like, well, maybe. For a benign tumor. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe I shouldn't have picked. I wish I hadn't. You know, he probably would have been totally fine. It probably was slow growing. But sometimes you can, you know, you can overdo it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then would you say from that time forward, you would be more wary? Yeah. So one good example that we see as EMTs is acoustic neuromas, which is a benign tumor that grows on either the hearing nerve or the balance nerve. And it can present with ringing in one ear or hearing loss in one ear or balance problems. And, for example, if you get a hearing test and there's a significant difference in hearing in one ear, it's pretty rare.

30:44but about 1 % of the time that will be from a neuroma. So the standard is you get an MRI, and then if you pick up the neuroma, what do you do? Well, in residency, I would have said, go get that thing, you know, go operate on it, cut that thing out. Now I'd be like, oh, I would just watch it, you know. See if it grows. See how fast it's growing. But that, you know, that's not the mindset when you're in training. Yeah. So basically you've come to realize that you just won't rush into surgery. It's not the solution for everything, but you don't rule it out. No. And you still do surgeries? Yes. Yeah.

31:23Yeah, so one of the most gratifying surgeries I do is just a simple adenoidectomy. What is that? So you have a ring of tissue in the back of your throat, your tonsils, your adenoid, and the back of your tongue, the base of your tongue. It's called Waldeyer's ring. All this tissue does is produce white blood cells. So people get very concerned when you take out tonsils. Am I, you know, destroying your immune defense in the back of your throat? Well, that would be very hard to do without removing the base of your tongue, which most people don't do that. So when you take out the adenoid, and interestingly enough, your adenoid shrinks and basically disappears by the time you're an adult.

32:05But in some kids, it just completely blocks the nose. so that, you know, the stuffy kid with the nose is always draining and it can lead to ear infections. And taking that out is like life-changing. Kids are out of anesthesia and usually that night they're back to their normal selves and then they're like all of a sudden can just breathe. Wow. Those are very gratifying. Do you ever consider changing someone's diet for allergy? Well, yeah, but it can be overkill. You know, some people, because there's some diet tests and you have to be careful how you test because there are some tests out there that overhaul it.

32:45And then people get very wound up and overly cautious about what they eat. But definitely there's, you know, some dietary things. And the way I usually tell people is, you know, eliminate things and then maybe test to confirm rather than test first. Elimination diet. Right. What is tongue-tied? So I was trained, and I still go by this, when the tongue is sort of tethered to the floor of your mouth and it's hard for you to protrude your tongue. So like if you're trying to lick an ice cream cone and you found that difficult, you might have tongue tie. And newborn babies sometimes have difficulty breastfeeding because there's a little bit of tethering there.

33:28Well, I was trained, you just go and snip it and we're done with it. But now it's become a thing where you have to use lasers and you have to do physical therapy after. And it's become complicated and expensive. So I'm old school. I just keep it simple. You can do it in the office. You do some topical anesthesia, scissors, and done. And is there any reason not to do it? I've never seen a complication from it. I'll say that. So I wouldn't say it always solves the breastfeeding problem, but I've never seen it backfire or have issues because it was done. What are your thoughts on mouth tape? I'm an advocate.

34:11When would you use it and how do you use it? Well, what it does, it forces you to breathe through your nose, which also forces the back of your throat open. I actually want to do a study on this because I could only find one study published about this, which is interesting because it seems to be everybody's talking about it. But it makes sense because if your mouth is, you know, if the air is going through your nose, it's going to have to go through your throat. I personally, I sleep with a chin strap because I don't want that tape on my mouth. But you can buy the same thing. It's basically, yeah, just keep your mouth shut while you're sleeping.

34:47And has your sleep changed when you started using that? Well, I can tell if I don't use it and if I wake up and my mouth is super dry, then I know I've probably been snoring. And yeah. So I feel like I sleep better with it. So you come back, you start your new dream practice that feels more like a spa than a doctor's office. And tell me how it started. Yeah. I mean, it was quiet, slow, manageable. You know, a lot of people word of mouth. It was easy. It was quiet. It was great. What happened next? And then COVID came. Do you remember the first person who came in with it? Yeah, it was very interesting.

35:28Did you already know it was called COVID at that time? No, it was very interesting because it was a friend of the family and their child had been in China for some sort of school trip and just came back with stubborn bronchitis. And I remember saying to them, have you heard about that virus in China, do you think? And they were like, oh, no, no way. And sure enough, you know, within a couple of weeks, it just exploded in the U.S. Wow. What did you recommend for treatment in that first case before you even knew what it was? Yeah, you cover for secondary infection with antibiotics. You give steroids if needed.

36:11You do breathing treatments. Just sort of basic, common sense. what I'd always done for respiratory tract infections. Were there any cases where you couldn't help the patient? Well, when COVID got really hot and heavy, I had some patients come in. I can only think of two. They just couldn't get better, but they came in like... Very late. Very late. I see. But the early patients and even some of the late patients, I had some really severe cases come into my office who normally I would have called 911 because they were so sick, but they refused to go to the hospital. And we just brought them in every day and we threw the kitchen sink at them and saved them.

36:58It was amazing. Why would they not want to go to the hospital? Because people have lost all trust in the system because... Even early in COVID, that was the case. Well, this wasn't, I wouldn't say this is super early. Super early, I didn't see super sick people. It was more, it was the fall of 2021 when things, that was the third surge. And it was also the largest surge. And that's when a lot of people ended up going in the hospital, more so than the earlier parts. And early on, I was using monoclonal antibodies, which worked very well. They were not controversial at all. and initially I could get as many doses as I wanted.

37:40I could just reach out to the manufacturer. They'd be at my office the next day, unlimited supply, wonderful. And I never rationed them. So I became known in town as a place to get medical antibodies because other places, you know, you had to be a certain age. You had to be a certain ethnicity. Like they were even doing it by race in some places. Why would that be if it was something that you could call an order for anybody? Well, they were expensive and the government was paying for them. I'll say that. Oh, I see. So I didn't ration them. I didn't give them to, you know, there was an age cutoff.

38:15I didn't go do that. But if you were, I think it was, you had to be 12 or older, I can't remember. But as long as you were the right age, I didn't, it was come one, come all. And they worked really well. And people bounced back very quickly. And then what happened, the government took over distribution. So then it became harder and harder to get the monoclonal antibodies. Why would they do that? If the healthcare system was working, why would the government want to take it over? I have theories on that. Do we not know for sure? Well, we don't have proof, but I mean, looking at the timeline, it all coincides with the COVID shot.

38:55They basically, the government took over distribution of the monoclonal antibodies, became harder and harder for me to get them. And then they completely shut down the monoclonal antibodies at the exact same time. And this was early September 2021 that they mandated the COVID shots. So to me, the timing is just not a coincidence. Now, if the monoclonal antibodies were working and the vaccine was new and we didn't know much about it, it seems odd that they would discontinue something that was working. I can see doing both. Yeah, well, the people were not getting the vaccine because they knew they could get monoclonal antibodies.

39:40You actually were not supposed to get the vaccine for three months following treatment with monoclonal antibodies. You were supposed to wait. And the government was getting frustrated because people were not on board with the vaccine as much as they would like. I remember people desperately trying to find the vaccine. I actually, I looked at this this morning because I was curious. In the first three months, only 30 % of people got the shot, got one shot. And it was available to everybody? I don't remember when it became available to everybody, but I don't know. I saw in Texas, I saw some people just, because I actually emailed my patients curious, like, okay, what's your stance on this?

40:23And there were people on both sides of it, like, hell no, I will never get that thing. and other people signed me up ASAP. It was interesting. So it came out in December, end of December. And, you know, ivermectin got chastised for the first time in March. How'd you been using ivermectin before that? I only started using ivermectin when I couldn't get monoclonal antibodies anymore. You know, they took away monoclonals and then... In your experience, did the ivermectin work as good as the monoclonals? Yes, but I was nervous about that. because I was like, monoclonals, like overnight, people would wake up the next morning and feel wonderful.

41:04I was like, there's no way ivermectin is going to work like this. And I wouldn't say it doesn't, it's not as quickly impactful as the monoclonals. Monoclonals are intravenous, yes? You could do an inject, you could do four injections or you could do an IV. But it was a very, it was, you know, a quick IV, like 15 minutes, it wasn't a big bag. So in one day you would get the full dosage. Yep. You wouldn't have to take it over time. No. With ivermectin, it was more like an antibiotic. You would take it over time. Right. Yep. Ivermectin, the earlier you took it, the better. Yeah. I mean, you could still take it in the late stages, but the earlier you took it, the better.

41:41What were the other things besides ivermectin and the monoclonals that made a difference? Hydroxychloroquine. Personally, I got COVID early on. I mean, it like melted it away. I had that chest tightness with the COVID, and I was shocked. I was like, wow. I mean, instant. Wow. Hydroxychloroquine. But, you know, Trump came out and said how great hydroxychloroquine was, and then it became forbidden. I mean, the Texas State Board of Pharmacy actually told doctors, you may not prescribe hydroxychloroquine for COVID. He was president at the time, wasn't he? Yes. It was just a wild story. It became very political.

42:20Wow. It seems like health shouldn't be political. It should not. I was not political at all prior to COVID. I hated politics. But, gosh, it became very political. And, yeah, Texas State Board of Pharmacy took it away from us. So I put that on the back burner. I just assumed. At that time, I wasn't fighting everything. So, okay. And then I just did my best with breathing treatments. And I would use steroids and antibiotics as needed. I also remember the way they got the vaccine out fast. What was it called? Operation Warp Speed? Yeah, Operation Warp Speed. I remember the president on TV touting Operation Warp Speed and many people on television saying, I will never take that drug because that's the president's drug.

43:08We will not take that. Right. Yeah, and then they changed their tune. It's all so strange. It's all, yeah. Hard to understand. It is. It's very, we need to get the politics out of health care. So then any other things besides the medicines, did other things help? Or did you prescribe any other supplements or lifestyle choices? Vitamin D is the most common deficiency I see by far. I mean, we can test for it very easily. And I would say when I look at that, probably 70 % of my patients that I test are low in vitamin D. And you're in a sunny place in Houston. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that's a very easy thing.

43:50We did vitamin D, zinc. Why do you think vitamin D is low in people who live in places with a lot of sun? Well, we're still, you know, you're inside a lot. Think about how much time we spend inside at the desk on a computer. And then, you know, when Houston's hot, people basically, it's like. Stay inside with air conditioning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I see. The vitamin D is huge. We did zinc, vitamin C. Vitamin C in high doses. There's great studies showing it prevents sepsis when given early. And there's also a lot of data showing it just decreases the duration of colds. So vitamin C was big. If you were sick, what's the mega dose of vitamin C that would be the right one if you're not well?

44:35I tell my patients, you know, just at home taking five grams a day. But you can, you know, we do IVs where you get high dose vitamin C for people that are sick, like 25, 30 grams. Wow. And there's no toxic reaction to that. Well, you do need to make sure they have an enzyme that can process it. So it can, there's, you know, there's some caveats to it. And if they have kidney stones, that can sometimes be an issue. Zinc, that was another one, inhibits the virus from entering the cells. glutathione which glutathione you can't take orally so the oral form of that is called NAC or NAC that can be helpful for respiratory and inflammation yeah the nasal irrigations the saline also irrigating your throat but you know ivermectin has been sort of the mainstay I'll say that of all the things.

45:34I was a skeptic about it, actually. Before I started using it, I really dug into the safety and I did my own research. I didn't just take anybody's word for it. I went to the FDA's website and I found the study that Merck had to submit to the FDA to get it approved. And in that is all sorts of toxicity data. And a key number that we look at is called the LD50, which stands for lethal dose 50. It's a benchmark number about toxicity of drugs. And it's basically the amount of drug that would kill 50 % of lab animals. And what I found is the LD50 of ivermectin is, I mean, at least a hundred times higher than what we're prescribing.

46:20Wow. It's super safe. And then I also did a literature search trying to find reports of accidental and an intentional overdose from ivermectin. I could not find any reports. Whereas if you do that search for Tylenol, you'll find thousands. So I knew it was safe. And then I started using it with sort of trepidation, wondering, is this really gonna work? But I ended up treating over 6 ,000 COVID patients. And everybody that got early treatment survived. About one-third of those patients were monoclonal antibodies, and about two-thirds, I didn't have the monoclonal antibodies at my disposal.

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48:35What happened next? So I was also doing testing for COVID and we became known in town as a place you could go to get a COVID test and get the results back quickly. and we did a saliva test. Was that not available elsewhere? No. So LabPour became the first in the country to do testing. And this was March, I think it was like March 10th. And they quickly became inundated and they were taking two weeks to get results back. Because they were getting all the tests from all over the country. Right. And they were the only lab doing it. Wow. And so people were advised to quarantine for 14 days if they got exposed.

49:18So the point of testing was so that you didn't have to quarantine, but the results were taking two weeks. So it was completely pointless. So I had already been working with this lab called Microgen DX, and they do a PCR test for bacterial and fungal infections in the sinuses. They do it skin. Their specialty is PCR testing. So they came out with a PCR saliva test for COVID. And because I'm in a strip mall, it worked out very well because we could take a cup out to people's cars. They could spit in the cup. They could leave it in a basket outside our office. And they didn't get swabbed at the nose.

49:56And our staff didn't get exposed. And we'd have the results back the next day. So my little clinic, it kind of exploded because of that and the monoclonal antibodies. Because I was doing testing, once the vaccine came out, I was starting to track people. Like, he's been vaccinated and he's not. And so what I found was that the vaccinated were outnumbering the unvaccinated, and they were just as sick, if not sicker. I had privileges at Houston Methodist Hospital, which was the first hospital in the country to mandate the shots. So they did this on April 1st, 2021, five months before the government mandated them.

50:38Sort of paved the way for mandates. and I had privileges, but I had never used them. I was very loosely affiliated with them. What does it mean having privileges with a hospital? Meaning that if you have a sick patient, you can admit them to that hospital and treat them at that hospital. Sort of just had it as backup because I'm ENT, I'm primarily outpatient. And I actually did have a good relationship with them because I was working with them on research because I was doing so much testing. We were looking at sort of ENT symptoms with COVID And but when I started seeing this trend, I reached out to them.

51:15I said, hey, are you seeing what I'm seeing? Like, I'm seeing all these breakthrough cases. Is that what y 'all are seeing? You know, curious. What's a breakthrough case? People that are vaccinated that get COVID. I see. And I sort of got the, you know, oh, well, we think it's just going to lower severity. Well, this is the first hospital in the country to mandate the shots. I would think they'd have a firm response to that. Like, I'm sure they were tracking it. So that didn't sit well with me. And I started speaking out on, at the time, it was Twitter, now X. I started speaking out on Twitter.

51:53I did not have a following. I mean, I have, you know, I'd post something and no one would like it. I had no following. But, you know, I was pretty timid compared to things I'll say now. I mean, I said, ivermectin works. And vaccine mandates are wrong. I had a lot of people very distraught about the mandates, which are legitimate concerns. I mean, this had not been tested long. It was a new technology. And, you know, I just saw firsthand how distressed people were over these mandates. And you saw firsthand that it wasn't necessarily helping the people who were getting it. Right. Like, I knew early treatment worked.

52:33Yeah. And I was seeing the vaccine wasn't working. And the experience before the vaccine ever came, you were dealing with it and having success. Right. Yeah. I wasn't fearful of the virus because I saw that we could treat it. And I didn't see a need to mandate these shots. So I started speaking out on social media about it. And then things really heated up in the fall of 2021. And that was the third and largest surge of the pandemic. Nine months following the rollout of these shots. So theoretically, we shouldn't be seeing a surge, right? And in October, it was October 22nd, this woman reached out to me wanting help because her husband was in the hospital.

53:19And they had determined, they had given up. They were talking hospice. And she wanted him to try ivermectin. How old was he? He was in his 50s, late 50s. Sergeant's deputy, father of six. served his community for 30 years. Yeah. How long had he been in the hospital when you got the call? About a month. And some would say, well, it's too late for ivermectin. That's not true, actually. Even at that late stage, people found it effective. And it was so safe. It's like, what's the harm in trying? Especially if you're saying that he basically has no chance of living. And he had tried to get ivermectin prior to becoming hospitalized and couldn't.

54:04So we knew, she knew he wanted it. Just to be clear, ivermectin is over the counter in some parts of the world, yes? It is over the counter in five states. In five states? Yeah, now. Wow. I've been in other places in the world where you just go into the pharmacy and buy ivermectin, like, next to the clotrimeton, let's say. Yep. Mexico. Yeah. People buy it from India all the time. I mean, it's super safe. So she decided to sue the hospital. because they tried to find a doctor in the hospital who would prescribe it. They would not. So they had to find a doctor willing to prescribe the ivermectin to submit with the lawsuit.

54:45So I became that doctor and I agreed to help. And it turned into a big mess. Did you know what you were getting into at the time or no? No, no, no. There was a guy who was sick. Right. You've seen 6 ,000 patients get better. Right. And you feel like you can help somebody who's dying. Right. Is that correct? Exactly. Okay. I just want to make sure I understand it. Yeah. Clearly what happened. I had never had this situation before. No. It was just very unique. No, your intentions are good and you're doing what you would normally do. Right. Right. There was no criminal intent. No. And I knew that the ability for him to get ivermectin depended on the outcome of the lawsuit.

55:28Like, it was never under the delusion that I could just give him ivermectin. I knew it all hinged on the outcome of the lawsuit. And so I testified, and a Texas senator also testified during this hearing, and we won. And the hospital was ordered to grant me emergency temporary privileges so that I could give the patient the ivermectin. And during the pandemic, that process of getting privileges was expedited. It was usually a same-day process because they were in such need of doctors helping. They didn't make you go through all the rigmarole that you normally have to go through. But not in this situation.

56:09They made me get letters of recommendation. I had to submit my surgical caseload. They waited three days, and then they decided they were going to deny my privileges. Even though, I mean, I had a clean record, never been sued. At that time, I still had a good reputation.

56:28so it became very messy and complicated because they had to go back to the judge because they were they were defying the court order and then after a bunch of back and forth the lawyer for the patient said we're good to go i talked to the lawyer for the hospital it's all been worked out we can send a nurse to the hospital to give him ivermectin it's also been days and the guy's dying. Right, right. You've already wasted days and this guy's life's hanging in the balance. Right. So I send the nurse and the police show up. They call the police on her. And the hospital had appealed and the judge had granted them a stay, meaning that the order, the original order was no longer valid.

57:14But the lawyer for the patient never got the stay. She didn't know about to stay. So we were under the impression that the order was still valid, but the nurse left. Like it wasn't like she tried to shove into the ICU and she left. So the hospital turned me in the medical board. They actually turned me in the medical board before this even happened. They turned me in the medical board as soon as the lawsuit occurred, where I wrote the prescription for the ivermectin as part of the lawsuit. And I am still battling the board to try to clear my name. Really? Yeah. I could have made it all go away if I paid$5 ,000, took eight hours of CME, and then retook the jurisprudence.

57:56What is that? Eight hours of what? CME, continuing medical education. There's a legal exam that all doctors have to take in Texas. They want me to retake it. I could have made it go away with that, but I just decided to fight just on principle. Because the principle of it was it had nothing to do with that. Is that right? Well, it's become politicized. It's lawfare. You know, it was a messy, complicated situation where my intentions are good. And they're basically telling patients that you can't sue a hospital. You can't bring in another doctor for a second opinion outside the hospital. It's really giving the power to the hospital and not the patients.

58:38And... It sounds really dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. Well, from this, what I would like is to have some sort of legislation in place where patients can bring in a doctor who doesn't have privileges to give a second opinion, as long as their license is in order. Yeah. You know, any doctor should be able to come in and give a second opinion. if you have a relationship with that patient, as a patient, you have a doctor you really trust, that doctor to have privileges at your hospital, the patient should be able to bring that trusted doctor into the hospital to get a second opinion. So if you have a doctor who's your main doctor and they know you, you know them, an accident happens and you go into the emergency room and you end up in the hospital, the way it currently stands, your doctor can't come in and give their opinion?

59:26No, no, no. That's amazing. Yeah, we should change that. Yeah, especially if you have a trusted relationship with anyone. Exactly. So that's been going on for how many years now? Four years. Wow. $250 ,000 on legal fees. Wow. It's crazy. Unbelievable. Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? I mean, I'm appealing. So far it's been trapped in the executive branch. So it went from a little informal settlement conference, and then it goes to the state office of administrative hearings, which is administrative law judges that are not elected. And they work for the medical board, basically. They work for the state.

1:00:11So now it goes outside of that system to the judicial branch. So I'll take it to a state district court. And then from there, I'll have to appeal to the Supreme Court of Texas. But then I'm also suing them. just for violating my due process rights. There's been all sorts of shenanigans that are just, you know, they're just trying to make this as difficult as they possibly can. Yeah. It's a wild story. Anything you, looking back, could you have done anything differently? Or now if you had it to do over again, what would be different? I wish I had started using ivermectin earlier. I wish I'd been more outspoken.

1:00:51Yeah. I was... Just because you saw it work. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't have any regrets over the trouble it's caused me. No, because I assume, regardless of what is being put on you, you did what you thought was right. Right, right. What do you think happens next? Like I said, I'm still in the midst of all this mess. I want to see that legislation we talked about. One thing we didn't talk about is the head of the snake is the Federation of State Medical Boards. So when I got my complaint, I got three complaints from the medical board all about ivermectin. So not just this one, but I had two other complaints and not from the patient.

1:01:33I was going to say patients didn't complain. No, no. Just the system. Yeah. I had a pharmacist complain about me. So I prescribed for a 17-year-old boy and I talked to the dad and the stepmother. I thought it was, I didn't know that it was the stepmother. The mom complained about me prescribing it to him. He never even took it. And there was no harm or anything. But it's just basically she had preconceived notions about ivermectin. And she thought I was trying to poison her son. But doctors all across the country, it was the fall of 2021. We all got complaints from the medical board over ivermectin.

1:02:11And if you prescribed it the year before, what would have happened? So the organization, the FSMB, Federation of State Medical Boards, sent a directive to all the medical boards across the country to go after doctors for prescribing ivermectin. So it wasn't just me. Are they doing this because they thought it was dangerous? Well, I think, you know, like monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin was demonized because they wanted more people to get the vaccine. You know, if we had treatment, early treatment available, then people are less likely to get the vaccine. And I actually sued the FDA over this because the FDA, they put something on their website in March of 2021 about doctors should not prescribe ivermectin and patients should not take ivermectin for COVID.

1:03:03And then August 23rd, 2021, they put out, I don't know if you saw the infamous horse tweet, but they put a tweet out with attractive woman nuzzling a horse. And it said, seriously, y 'all, you're not a horse. You're not a cow. Stop it about ivermectin. And that tweet really did some damage. It went viral. Right after that, they went after Joe Rogan for taking ivermectin. And Rolling Stone put out that misinformation about, you know, they showed these people lining up for the emergency room, claiming that they were poisoned by ivermectin and that people with gunshot wounds couldn't get in or something like that.

1:03:42It was insane. And then shortly thereafter, the Surgeon General came out and said, we have to put an end to misinformation from doctors. From doctors? Yeah. And then the Federation of State Medical Boards sent out directives to all the state medical boards to go after doctors. So I'm actually in a lawsuit against them with three other doctors. Are the people on the board all doctors? No, it depends on the state. In Texas, I think it's like 75 % doctors, 25 % non-doctors. Wow, it sounds like no wonder people have lost faith in the system.

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1:06:04Have you documented this whole thing? Have you written a book? I've written a book. It comes out in May. It's called Dangerous Misinformation. It was actually four years ago, almost to the day that I got just publicly shamed by Houston Methodist. They sent out a tweet. They suspended my privileges because I was speaking out against mandates. And I found out that my privileges were suspended from a text message from a reporter at the Houston Chronicle. So they went to the media before they went to me. And then they tweeted out that I was spreading dangerous misinformation. Just to be clear, you weren't against the vaccine, you were against the mandate.

1:06:46I didn't see any harm. I didn't see the people getting harmed from the vaccine. I just saw it wasn't working. Right. And so I was anti-mandate. And I actually, days before they did that, I tweeted out vaccine mandates are wrong with screenshots from patients sending me emails. I tweeted that out 25 times in one day and that made them mad. Yeah. What were the screenshots of? I sent out an email to my patients. And when that hospital, Texas Heugley Hospital, denied my privileges. That same day, I got a notice from a surgery center that I had privileges at that I had to get the COVID shot or I wouldn't be able to operate there.

1:07:35And that same day, I also got a frantic phone call from a patient who had a history of bladder cancer. And her urologist at Houston Methodist had called her and said, you may have to find a new doctor if you don't get the shot because we're talking about not letting patients in. So all those three things happen on the same day. And so I sent an email to my patients explaining that. And I said, going forward, I'm going to prioritize seeing the unvaccinated. So I'm not taking new patients that are vaccinated unless you have a life-threatening issue. I never upheld that, but I was trying to make a statement.

1:08:13Yeah. And also, if the medical establishment was saying we're not going to treat the unvaccinated, you're like, you can come to me. It's like, I'm the alternative. Right. And so I got a lot of emails in response to that. So I did screenshots of those responses. And then I put on the heading of tweet was vaccine mandates are wrong. And I literally did 25 of those in one day. And at the time, I really didn't have a big account. I mean, I had like. But the idea is that everyone deserves treatment. You were going with the idea that all humans deserve compassionate treatment. Right, right. And you should be able to choose what you put in your body.

1:08:51Of course. What have you learned since? Yeah, so I saw that the shots weren't working initially, but then I started to see people that were harmed by the shots. How would you see that? How would that come up? So I would see previously healthy people come in with dramatic changes in their health status in short proximity of time they got their shots. And I started to see a pattern of symptoms. I would see strange rashes, rashes that would not respond to antihistamines or steroids. I would see strange. Was that different than the people who had contracted COVID prior to there being a vaccine? Yes, yes, definitely.

1:09:33I mean, I definitely have seen long, like COVID with prolonged symptoms. I definitely, and I believe that there is such a thing as long COVID. What I've seen with these vaccines, though, is more dramatic. Yeah, like long COVID on steroids. So strange rashes, strange neurological issues, like severe pain in one part of the body. and, you know, the imaging studies, there's nothing to explain where this pain's coming from. Seeing a lot of POTS, P-O-T-S, it's when your blood pressure and pulse become erratic and you may stand up and your blood pressure drops and you feel faint. Or you may just be sitting there and all of a sudden your pulse just starts racing for no reason.

1:10:22A lot of fatigue and some people have strange, like I had a 39-year-old male. I mean, I'm still seeing this four years later too, people still coming to my office. Swelling under his, you know, initially under the armpit where the shot was given. And then it migrated to the other armpit. And then it migrated to his groin. And it's been going on for four years. That kind of thing. Have you seen any patients who've had similar things who were not vaccinated? no i mean no and i mean that and even people who've had covid well i would say i think the mechanism is a spike protein and the spike protein can be from covid or it can be from the covid shot problem with the covid shots is they were designed so that your body creates a spike protein with no off switch so the concern is and i don't think it's an everybody got the shot I think some shots were more potent than others.

1:11:26The shots required very stringent storage requirements. Is that possible that some shots could be more stronger than others? That sounds crazy. Well, manufacturing. So manufacturing, you know, these things were operation warp speed, right? Super fast. So there could be discrepancies in the quality from manufacturing. But the other factor is the storage requirements were super, You had to buy specialized freezers, and they could not sit out at a room temperature for very long. And so my theory is a lot of people really kind of got a dud. I remember you could get it not at a doctor's office, but just at a tent.

1:12:03Or a lot of people, you know, I don't know how it was here, but in Texas, you could go down to the NRG Stadium in your car. So I'm like, how do they keep those shots, you know, fresh when you're— So just tents in parking lots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the problem, though, with these vaccine injuries is we don't have a lot of tests. There's not a test for spike protein in the body. The only thing that I have found useful is looking at antibodies. So after you get COVID infection or a vaccine, you produce an antibody response, and that's a lasting response. And it does wane with time. But what I'm finding in the people that got the shots is these antibodies are staying super high and for very long periods of time.

1:12:55And in the patients that got the shots, the average level I'm seeing is about 13 ,000. and the people that not get the shots is about 1 ,300. So it's about 10 times higher. And this is four years later. They should dissipate. So it's a little bit muddy, but it suggests that there is lingering spike protein in the body. If there was a desire to get to the bottom of this, what would be the tests that would be needed to see the spike protein in the body? Could there be one? I just got a note about this yesterday. In fact, a lab that says they have a test for spike protein, but it needs to be validated.

1:13:40And there is a lab in Germany that's doing it, but I have had mixed reviews on that from other people. So I don't use it. Do you know of other doctors who also were helping people who needed help during this time? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And a lot of us, you know, I'm not the only one that's been dragged through the mud because of that. Excited to see what happens. And it would be really great to find out more information, like if we could really find out what. Well, we have the current administration is saying, oh, we need more data. We need more data. We do have an abundance of data. We have over 3600 peer review published studies showing adverse reactions from these shots.

1:14:23We have autopsy reports. We have life insurance and disability data that peaked in the third quarter of 2021 when the COVID shots were put on the market. Other countries like Czechoslovakia has data showing that you look at all-cause mortality. Czechoslovakia has a very convincing data that all cause mortality shot up after these COVID shots. You know, you look at the swine flu vaccine in 1976. It was pushed out hard. A large number of Americans took it. Approximately, I think 25 % of the country took it. They had 30 deaths and they pulled it off the market. So it's kind of a similar situation, right?

1:15:14The emergency situation. They pushed out this new vaccine. They quickly identified that the vaccine was potentially harming people and they acted on it. Here, you look at the first three months, similar, about 30 % of Americans took the shots. Pfizer, according to their own data, 1 ,233 people died from the Pfizer shot in that first three months. Now compare that to swine flu shot, 30 people died. And what do we do? Not only do we ignore that, we double down and we mandate it. There's a website you can look at, openvares.com. And VAERS is the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. It's known to be underreported.

1:16:04So I will say of all, I see a lot of vaccine injured patients. I see every day and it's four years later. And invariably, I'm not the first doctor they've seen, but I'm the first doctor that has reported their injury to VAERS. It doesn't have to be, you know, 100 % confirmation. It just needs to be suspicion. But these patients aren't getting reported to VAERS because there's been such a, you know, we can't speak the truth about COVID or the vaccine. But if you go to openvaers.com and there's just a stunning graph. You look at, you know, there's been very few reports of errors, and then you get to COVID, and it's a volcanic explosion during COVID of the reports from the injuries.

1:16:52And the medical profession, only 10 % of doctors are continuing to get these COVID shots. 10 percent. 10 percent. And this was by the CDC. They announced this during the last ACIP meeting in September. They talked about this. Only 10 percent of health care workers are continuing to get these shots. The gig is up. The doctors know. Yeah, if the doctors are not taking them, that tells you something. Tell me about other parts of the world where maybe they didn't have vaccine or couldn't afford the vaccine. How did they fare during the pandemic? Yeah. You know, our country, I think we have 4 % of the world population and we had 15 % of the COVID deaths.

1:17:38Wow. And I don't, I should have looked this up. I know Africa fared much better and much lower uptake. Now, Africa probably, they probably live a cleaner lifestyle than Americans, I would imagine. But we should have led the world, right? We saved the world with the COVID shot, right? What percentage of the people that come to you now come to you with COVID-related stuff? Is it all back to normal of people coming in with tonsillitis? I wish. I miss those days. Still now. I miss them terribly. No, I'm telling you, almost every day, I am reminded of the carnage from these shots. I see it, and it's people whose lives have been utterly destroyed, and they're not getting any help.

1:18:27I mean, they go to other doctors and they're just told there's nothing wrong with you or they're put on psychiatric medication. Oh, yeah. I saw a patient that was put on a sleeping pill, Valium, and an antidepressant. What are the things you can do for the patients who come in with either long COVID or a vaccine injury? Well, the most effective thing I've found is ivermectin. Really? Yes. It's not, you know, a lot of it's trial and error. Is that legal now? Well, yeah, it's always been legal. It's just, yeah. Is it legal to prescribe though? Yeah, yeah. It's never been illegal to prescribe. So there's, it's off-label.

1:19:05So off-label means that the FDA has not said, okay, this medication has been tested for this disease and been shown to be effective. But doctors use drugs off-label all the time. Like prior to the pandemic, it didn't even occur to me if I was using something on-label or off-label because, you know, a drug can be in use for, you know, it initially gets approved for some issue and then doctors kind of figure out, oh, it also works for this. Can you think of any example where that's the case? Yeah. Gabapentin, which is a horrible drug. I don't like it. But there's something like 18 different uses for it that go beyond its initial off-label.

1:19:47But that's a widely prescribed drug that no doctor kind of goes in, looks up, oh, is this on-labor or off-label? I mean, And that's just not the way any doctors practice medicine. I never gave the FDA a second thought prior to the pandemic. I mean, it was just... Helping people. Yeah. The FDA is there to approve a medication, but they normally wouldn't be involved. And I don't think I explained this earlier, but we did sue them over that because when they put out that tweet and they put out the stuff on their website, they were basically interfering between the doctor-patient relationship. They were telling doctors what you can use and they can't do that.

1:20:25And they were telling patients what they can take and they're not allowed to do that. So we actually successfully sued the government, which is really hard to do. And they had to take down their tweet and they had to take off the misinformation on their website. That was a win. Yeah. I can remember Peter Itea early in the pandemic, looking at all the studies and seeing that ivermectin was helpful. And he was prescribing ivermectin for his patients. And then one day he called the pharmacy to call in the ivermectin order. And they said, no, we can't do that. And he went berserk. And he's like, no, you're the pharmacy.

1:21:02I'm the doctor. The pharmacy can't tell the doctor what to prescribe. Oh, yeah. Don't get me started on the pharmacy. I got in so many. So unfortunately in Texas, there is a law that gives them the final say. Wow. The pharmacy over the doctor. Yeah. I mean, the purpose of that was because of the abortion pill. If a pharmacist felt morally against dispensing an abortion pill, that was the purpose to give them that freedom. If, you know, they're anti-abortion that, you know, but they abused that. There was no, you know, moral thing over ivermectin. So we had like this underground, it was like the underground railroad of pharmacies.

1:21:43Like we had a little secret net, secret list. And I only, I recently publicized it for a long time. That list I had to keep seeing. I was scared that people would go after these pharmacies. Yeah. This is crazy. But now Ivermectin will become over the counter in Texas. Wow. It just passed the law. Yeah. The pandemic is over. How would you like things to be now? Yeah. I would like the government to go away. You said before COVID, you weren't aware of the government's involvement in anything. I never paid any attention to anything. No reason to. CDC, FDA, they did their own little business. It was, you know, and, you know, thankfully, because of my practice, Medicare, Medicaid, all that was just, it was just outside my realm.

1:22:32I was practicing medicine without any interference. And I would like to go back to that. But there is a growing movement called direct primary care. and it's basically like affordable concierge care. So you pay a monthly fee. It's comparable to a gym membership and you get much more time and access to your doctor. You only use your insurance for catastrophic care, kind of like your cars, right? You don't use your insurance to get the oil changed. And it's rare to find specialists like myself that are cash only, but that is also growing too. That's the direction I would like to see occur. I know that there is talk, maybe it's already been implemented, but I know that improving access to health savings accounts so that you can use your pre-tax money towards health care expenses is a step in the right direction.

1:23:32And moving away from these insurance companies, just, the only winner is the insurance company and the hospitals. They actually do well, but doctors don't win. Patients don't win. There's options where you can be outside the system, but you're still covered for, you know, catastrophic care. So if somebody wanted to opt out of the system, what is the best way to find this type of practice? There are two websites, Independent Medical Alliance, IMA, and Free Market Medical Association, FMMA. Independent Medical Alliance grew out of the pandemic. It used to be Frontline Critical Care Alliance, but then it just sort of rebranded since COVID is over.

1:24:23But it's independent-minded doctors that had the guts to go against the grain during the pandemic. And then Free Market Medical Association, I was actively involved by the pandemic. They kind of cast me aside. I was one of the directors for the Houston chapter. But when I became infamous, they— Radioactive. Yes. Yes. And they kind of distanced themselves from me. but I do believe in their organization. They're not all like-minded, but for the most part, I like the way, you know, their independence from the system is good. Tell me about the new practice right when you started it. Did you imagine it would be just like the last one, but now you're doing it yourself and no insurance?

1:25:10Yeah, so it was actually, it's financially risky because like doctors aren't going to refer to you because their patients have insurance. But to me, my goal was just, you know, make enough to cover the overhead and see where that goes and just, you know, be a happy doctor. And I didn't need the money to do the practice. I was just doing this because I wanted to be a doctor again. You know, because it's become so much so harder to get into a doctor in a timely fashion now, I became sort of the acute care clinic for respiratory tract infections because I can see people that day. I see. So that's sort of how I started.

1:25:51The other thing that I had an advantage of is people that have high deductible insurance plans, basically cash only patients, come see me because I knew exactly how much it would cost. It wouldn't be some pie in the sky. I have no idea until I get the bill. And even with surgery, like I can do surgeries for so much cheaper than what a doctor that takes insurance. Like, for example, if you needed your tonsils out, my fee, and that's not just me, but anesthesia and the surgery center, about$3 ,500. You go to Houston Methodist Hospital, it'd be$17 ,000. Wow. Big difference. Yeah. Would you say that your office functioned more or less like an urgent care if people could just come in?

1:26:43Yeah, I would. And, you know, my goal was to make people psychologically better. Because, you know, I was pregnant for basically five years straight. It would wreck my day going to the doctor. So Houston's home to the largest medical center in the world, the Texas Medical Center. and navigating that monstrosity was, you know, you go up a 10-story parking garage, then you go down and it's like being at the airport, basically, the Houston airport. So I really wanted to make it easy. I actually, I located my clinic in a strip mall so that there was none of that. It was very easy. You park and go in.

1:27:26I used spas as inspiration. So I infuse the air with peppermint spray. Nice. And I play spa music. And my waiting room is tiny. And if you do have to wait, we put you in a zero-gravity massage chair. And you do not fill out any papers. That used to drive me. I'd fill out every time I was at the OB's office papers. You created the doctor's office you wish you could go to. Right, exactly. That's great. Yeah. And then I provided on-site so you can get your lab drawn in my office. if you need an IV you can do in my office if you need a breathing treatment do it there if you need a CT scan we do it in the office so you know it's a hassle you go to the doctor and then okay well then I gotta schedule this somewhere else and it goes on forever yeah do people come to you for insomnia they do but I I'm pretty strict about not prescribing medications to help people sleep So people book an appointment with me.

1:28:28I'm like, well, you can come see me, but I'm not prescribing Ambien or any of those. But I do think there's sort of this basic fundamental issue with sleep that it boils down to you've got to calm your sympathetic nervous system down and stimulate your parasympathetic nervous system. And there's some very common sense things people can do. you get into this horrible cycle where you can't sleep, you stay up too late, then you end up taking a nap during the day, and then it just kind of perpetuates the problem, and it's a vicious cycle. But if you've ever cleaned out your garage or spent the entire day working on your yard or cleaned out your attic, that is something you can do that will completely exhausts you, will help your mind calm down and kind of reset your focus.

1:29:27The other thing is that's important to reset your circadian clock is to watch the sunrise. That is the most potent thing you can do to reset your clock. So reset it by watching the sunrise and then just completely exhaust yourself doing something. If you tell somebody who's not sleeping to go run three miles, that's a lot harder than, okay, clean out your garage. You will completely exhaust yourself. And then once you get back into a better pattern, that can be all it takes. Women, I will say menopausal women, when they start losing their hormones, especially progesterone, that can contribute to problems sleeping.

1:30:09So that is one medication I will use in women is progesterone to help them sleep. Men, oftentimes, it's the prostate and they have to get up to go to the bathroom. So that's not something I treat as an ENT, but I'll, you know, have them recognize that that can be a problem that needs to be addressed. But the other tricks I like, so if you have a pillow on your eyes, any kind of weight on your eyes stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system. So a trick we all learn in our training is if somebody comes in the emergency room with a hypertensive crisis, if you rub their eyes, it will bring their blood pressure down.

1:30:52So it's the same concept. You put weight on the eyes, it stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system. The other thing is a weighted blanket. Now, sometimes that makes people too hot, but if you can tolerate the extra heat, that weight on your body also stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system. And then if you just can't shut your mind off, I listen to an audio book. If when all else fails, just to get my mind sort of focused on somebody else's problems. And then I drift off to sleep. I used to use that with my kids all the time too. When I couldn't get them to sleep, I would just put an audio book on and that would definitely do the trick.

1:31:31And what about ringing in the ears? Ringing in the ears is very hard to treat. Often or typically, it's from damage to the tiny hair cells in the cochlea, and then they start emitting sounds. The only success I ever have in treating ringing, assuming it's just the most common type of ringing where it's sort of this low hum that doesn't pulsate with your heart, but just is a noise in your ear. if you pop your ears and it changes the tone of the ringing, then fixing the eustachian tubes can help the ringing. So sometimes it's because there's too much pressure in your middle ear because the eustachian tube is clogged and that pressure in the middle ear is transmitting to the inner ear.

1:32:23And if you fix the middle ear, then the inner ear will be better. It doesn't often cure it, but it can make it better. And sometimes it's more than just using sprays, like you have to try steroids or something like that. But if the nature of the ringing changes when you pop your ears, there's more hope that you can do something about it. If it doesn't, and you know, typically we recommend you get a hearing test because you want to make sure that you're not seeing an asymmetric hearing loss in one ear because that can be a sign of more serious problems. But But assuming that it's just regular old tinnitus, there's not a lot you can do for it.

1:33:03There's a newer device called the Liniette, but I don't have a lot of firsthand experience with it. But it's basically biofeedback. And sometimes hearing aids can be programmed to drown out the ringing. A lot of people, once they know that it's nothing serious, they just learn to get used to it. It's kind of like if you moved into a neighborhood right next to the airport, the airplane might drive you crazy when you first move in. And then eventually you just forget about it. So people adapt to the noise. But it can be very bothersome for a small percentage of people. Tell me about when you would recommend that someone get hearing aids.

1:33:47Yeah, it's funny. People are often pretty resistant to hearing aids compared to glasses. and I would say, you know, if you're not sure, start with something inexpensive like Costco or, you know, and see how you like those. And then if you find them helpful, then maybe upgrade to something fancier where they can program them so that when you're in a noisy restaurant, it helps drown out the background noise and amplify the voices close to you. But yeah, I would say just start with something inexpensive. If you're not sure, just test it first. What's the most unusual thing anyone's come in with? Well, the most memorable, I think, is when I was in Galveston.

1:34:34So I'd started my residency at UTMB in Galveston, Texas. They have the largest prison hospital in the state of Texas, and they bus people in from all over the place. and I saw a prisoner where the other prisoner had bitten his ear off and I had to sew it back on. So that was probably the most memorable. And I remember seeing some patients come in with maggots. So people with chronic wounds sometimes get infestated with maggots. What do you do for maggots? You just clean them all out. you debride it and it's usually around dead skin. So they're cleaning the dead skin. So it's basically just cleaning off the wound.

1:35:19You've seen a lot in your life. Yeah, it's not that exciting now in the real world, but during residency, you see so much. You see just wild things.

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