Texas Doctor Offers Free COVID Vaccine Exemptions to Medical Students Amid Mandate Dispute
"I will write a medical exemption for any student in Texas facing this mandate - free of charge. Email frontdesk@breathemd.org."
This article originally appeared on The Defender and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D.
Dr. Mary Talley Bowden says she will write free medical exemptions — and help fund legal challenges — for Texas medical students facing COVID-19 vaccine requirements at teaching hospitals. “If they deny my exemption, I will help you find a lawyer and raise money to sue them,” she said on X.
Houston physician Dr. Mary Talley Bowden offered to write medical exemptions for medical students studying in Texas teaching hospitals that mandate the COVID-19 vaccine.
“I will write a medical exemption for any student in Texas facing this mandate — free of charge,” Bowden wrote in a post on X. “If they deny my exemption, I will help you find a lawyer and raise money to sue them,” she added.
Bowden said she would provide free exemptions for students at five Texas institutions, including Baylor College of Medicine and Houston Methodist, that require the updated COVID-19 vaccine for students seeking to do rotations there.
Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland said she admired Bowden’s “brave act of civil disobedience.”
“These medical products should not be on the market; they have been proven unsafe and ineffective,” Holland said. “No person should be mandated to take these injections or any others. No doubt Dr. Talley Bowden understands that in the current medical and legal environment, she risks losing her medical license for doing this.”
Texas Rep. Mayes Middleton announced his support for Bowden on X. He said COVID-19 vaccine mandates are banned in Texas under a law that he wrote. “It’s a $50,000 per occurrence penalty and also protects those applying as contractors, which students are because they will receive a benefit from performing work,” he wrote.
Middleton said that since the law passed, medical schools said they would stop requiring the vaccine at their Texas facilities. However, schools that have partnerships with facilities out of state may be subject to different laws.
In February 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to halt federal funding for all schools, including colleges and universities, that still impose COVID-19 vaccine mandates on students.
But the order didn’t apply to healthcare students. That’s because, to graduate, healthcare students must complete their clinical rotations — and hospitals and clinical facilities have required these students to take updated COVID-19 vaccines even when faculty and staff no longer must comply.
The Association of American Medical Colleges, known as the AAMC, offers a standardized immunization form that lists all the vaccines medical students should get — including the COVID-19 shot.
Bowden told The Defender that 97 teaching hospitals use this form. She said this creates a legal gray area about whether some teaching hospitals in Texas are still allowed to mandate the shots. She said if students challenged it legally, they may succeed.
“The problem is, if you are a student, you’re a lot less likely to rock the boat,” Bowden said. She said students applying to programs who see this form may not know what their rights are, or may be hesitant to demand them.
Bowden said she used to be more private about writing medical exemptions, “but I feel like we’re way past that.” She said that with each exemption, she follows proper procedures, establishing a doctor-patient relationship.
In response to whether she feared being attacked for writing exemptions, Bowden said, “I’m going through the proper procedures. So if they do come after me, it will bring a very important debate to the forefront of the news. If that’s the case, then so be it.”
In the meantime, she is also attempting to help connect students in other states to practitioners who will write exemptions for them.
She retweeted an X post from a student in New York seeking an exemption.
Her offer gained support from Dr. Kirk Moore, who retweeted Bowden’s original X post, writing “ditto.”
Moore said he will do the same for students in Utah.
Bowden gained national attention during the pandemic for developing protocols — including the use of ivermectin — for preventing COVID-19 and treating COVID patients.
The Texas Medical Board issued a formal reprimand to Bowden for her actions, which she is fighting in court. The reprimand carries no penalties, but Bowden said she is fighting it “on principle.”
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