The news from the heartland of Pakistan:
Interior minister in Pakistan refers to “the martyrdom of Ayatollah Khamenei”..
“a day of mourning for the Muslim Ummah”
Didn’t realize how much support there was for Khameini in Pakistan.
Close US ally Pakistan can’t protect the U.S. consulate ?
🚨🇵🇰🇺🇸 Hundreds of protesters marching toward the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan to mourn Khamenei's death.
Security deployed on all roads leading to the area.
" public health was the midwife of marxism".....
🤔🤔
Persian bakery in my neighborhood was blasting celebratory music and full of revelers today.
I asked the man behind the cashier if he was happy. “It’s one of the happiest days of our lives,” he said
(The bakery has a photo of a
22 year old nephew killed last week by the regime on the door.)
Teaser for upcoming episode on @DRsLoungePod with London based biotech CEO @AAMortazavi
".. to me , it looks like the FDA is open for business.."
Two of these 11 men were my uncles, my mom’s brothers.
They were executed by firing squad for opposing the new Islamic Republic regime.
Their trial was only 30 minutes long. They were convicted of being “counterrevolutionary” and executed in Sanandaj.
The photo took captured one of many brutal moments in Iran and won the Pulitzer Prize.
Waiting with bated breath to know what the Lancet will say on Iran.
He’s still alive!
And still opining.
Mine was condemned to death and executed by firing squad in Tehran in 1981 for attempting to fund a coup as he opposed the religious rule and believed in the separation of church and state.
The family was close to the monarchy and did everything they could to fight against the Islamic Republic.
Fighters at heart, fighters forever.
🦁✊
🔥
“Soviet pseudoscience did not arise from too little state authority, but from too much; once political power decided what science was allowed to conclude, inquiry collapsed into obedience. Hotez did not simply wander into this minefield; he created it the moment he framed his argument around “pseudoscience,” a term the Soviets themselves weaponized against their scientific opponents. Best case, he is a useful idiot who ignorantly quotes Gorky simply because he likes the novelist’s turn of phrase; otherwise, he is reproducing Marxist–Leninist techniques of defaming legitimate opponents.”
Dr. Dan Choi @drdanchoi on @MaryBowdenMD and her battle against the system.
R to @anish_koka: Also cohost: @DrDiGiorgio !!
Pinned: Latest @drsloungepod features @MaryBowdenMD
Third Party Free: Dr. Mary Talley Bowden on Taking On Houston Methodist, the Texas Medical Board, and the Machinery of Medical Conformity
Dr. Mary Talley Bowden never set out to become one of the most visible physician voices of the pandemic era. A solo ENT in Houston who launched her practice six months before COVID hit, she built a "third party free" model — no insurance contracts, no hospital affiliations, no government ties. That independence turned out to be the only thing that let her push back when the system came for her.
What followed is a saga that every physician in America should know about: a court order to treat an ICU patient defied by a hospital, police called on a nurse, privileges revoked for social media posts, a defamation lawsuit derailed by her attorney's stroke, a $166,000 check written to Houston Methodist, and a years-long battle with the Texas Medical Board that's now landed in state district court — where the attorney general has refused to defend the board. In this episode, Dr. Bowden tells the full story and makes the case for why physician independence is the only real safeguard against institutional overreach.
0:00 - Introduction & Dr. Bowden's Background
3:12 - The COVID Practice: Testing, Monoclonals, and Ivermectin
5:35 - Houston Methodist's Vaccine Mandate
7:47 - The Texas Hughley Hospital Court Order
10:12 - Reported to the Medical Board for Testifying 12:48 - How Health Systems Weaponize Privileges and the NPDB
15:18 - Houston Methodist Suspends Privileges Over Tweets
16:53 - The Defamation Lawsuit and the $166,000 Check
19:20 - The Texas Medical Board Battle
23:03 - Ken Paxton Refuses to Defend the Board
24:39 - Dan Choi on Physician Independence and the Chilling Effect
28:05 - Texas Politics and the Medical Establishment 33:26 - Working Locally: State-Level Legislative Strategy 35:52 - Widening the Overton Window in Medicine
44:59 - Casey Means and HHS Leadership 50:25 - Dr. Bowden's HHS Wishlist
53:46 - What Would HHS Secretary Bowden Do for Physicians?
56:32 - CrowdHealth and Alternative Models
59:24 - What Drives Dr. Bowden to Keep Fighting
1:03:19 - Book Announcement: Dangerous Misinformation
Subscribe to The Doctor's Lounge: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | RSS
Follow the Show:X: @DrsLoungePod
Co-hosts:@anish_koka | @drdanchoi | @dutchrojas | @sdixitmd
In analyzing the DOGE HHS and other healthcare data, I found some guy who filed an average of 1.6 Medicaid reimbursement claims per minute--all under his own name, nobody else listed--24 hours a day for the entire year. This is just one example of many. This country is filled with corruption and fraud. It fills me with disgust.
I’d say when the scientific journals are sympathetic to Marxism, an ideology that killed millions, that, no, they should not be trusted.
My thoughts for reform here:
https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/340b-drug-pricing-program-capped-safety-net-grant
Minnesota is doing something rare in healthcare: real 340B transparency.
Their 2025 report just dropped. Buckle up.
The headline: $1.34 BILLION in net 340B revenue in a single year. That’s a massive, unregulated corporate windfall. These subsidies are unavailable to independent physicians.
And no, this isn’t “for the safety net.” ~81% of MN’s 340B net revenue was captured by just 23 DSH hospitals. One system alone (UMN Medical Center) captured 26.1% ($334.7M).
“But what about federal grantees??” Safety net clinics (FQHCs/tribal centers) got under 1% of net 340B revenue statewide. So spare me the press releases about the underserved. They are the marketing face for a program that mostly bankrolls big hospital expansion.
Middlemen are feasting, too: ~$165M in 340B operational costs. This is a massive toll paid to pharmacies and TPAs to navigate a deliberately convoluted program so big systems can maximize the spread.
“There’s no public cost.” False. MDH estimates 35.5% of net 340B revenue comes from Medicare and 19.4% from Medicaid. Taxpayers are literally helping bankroll the arbitrage.
This is how you build consolidation: create a federally protected pricing loophole, then act shocked when the biggest institutions reorganize around harvesting it.
Judge a policy not by its intent but by its outcomes. 340B outcome is clear: it's a disaster.
The MN report proves 340B is no longer a small program for clinics; it’s a billion-dollar subsidy for hospital consolidation. Kudos to @mnhealth for actually showing us the receipts.
@drdanchoi The only Marxism I follow
Every physician should read this editorial in the Lancet.
It is not parody.
This will raise your blood pressure. RFK was just on Rogan, and he detailed the level of Somali fraud in Minnesota that accelerated under Biden. Programs related to autism were expected to cost $3 million a year. It got up to over $400m a year - all fraud.
It’s not just public posturing.
XBI - which is a reasonable measure of investor confidence in drug approvals- is up over the last year.
Down big 2021-2024. No daily sky falling replace the FDA headlines I can recall from that time.
I’m sorry Moderna’s platform appears to have some real problems - wld be even higher if not for that.
BREAKING!!! 30 more indicted on FACE ACT and KLAN ACT, 25 already arrested this morning! Incredible teamwork by our @CivilRights prosecutors, assist from HSI & FBI agents to make these arrests safely & fast.
It's a great honor to work for a @TheJusticeDept that protects faith!
They are always desperate to publish research that confirms their political priors. Makes them very poor at science
The Lancet is the poster child for being bad at science (they famously published the Wakefield Autism Vaccine study that has some red flags ) and is arrogant enough to routinely make a fool of itself commenting on world politics from its very liberal lens.
This is getting ridiculous. How much longer are these truck drivers going to be free to cause mayhem? Immigration status "withheld" says it all. Anyone who uses these shady trucking companies that hire illegals should face harsh penalties.
For many decades, the Surgeon General has been a national communicator — a high-visibility health official tasked with shaping public behavior and framing health priorities. It is not a bench science post, and it is not a role involving treating individual patients. Dr. Means is more qualified than all recent officeholders: she has built a large direct audience and demonstrated an ability to influence how people think about metabolic and environmental health at scale. Reach and clarity matter more than institutional pedigree.
As for the insinuations about her residency, vague allegations without documented findings are not evidence — they’re smears. If there were substantiated professional violations, they would be on record. Repeating innuendo in place is reputational sabotage pretending to be concern.
"Physicians in today’s environment need to organize to save the profession from these evil doers."
Physicians have many strong suits, but organizing to exert political pressure as a class is not one of them (based only what I have seen, not from an insider perspective).
Investigative journalist @thackerpd is a thorn in the side of the censorship-industrial complex.
Gender vs Sex
Mark McDonald MD Psych
#HealthIsNumberOne #HINO
10am ET Sat. Feb 28, 2026
@WWDB_AM_860 @MMcDonaldMD
http://HealthIsNumberOne.com
Is there an epidemic of Autism, is it finally being recognized more by clinicians and treated…or are some fraudsters gaming the safety net system at the expense of taking resources away from those who really need them? The recent Data Dump @SamirUnni has discussed on @DRsLoungePod is raising some legit questions.
Dr. Bowden is amazing, and I've been reading about the TMB's surreal persecution of her for ~a year. Therefore I was most interested in hearing the POV of the doctors of the Lounge on the situation. Every comment was very interesting and insightful, and I learned a lot.
[Incidentally I have followed TX politics a long time. Cruz and Abbott are 2 of the most useless Republicans anywhere--and that field is crowded and brutal]
I was a little nervous about doing this interview… three doctors not within my trusted circle…. But it went very well and hope it reaches some of my haters. Thank you @DRsLoungePod for having me on!
Regardless of whether you agreed with @MaryBowdenMD what @anish_koka writes is sound analysis. Medicine remains an art with far too much gray to approach things the way we did during COVID- which in many ways was the ultimate unknown we struggled to understand early on. Courage is standing for your convictions to help your patients. More physicians should consider @MaryBowdenMD to be heroic even if they vehemently disagreed with her conclusions. Science is rarely if ever settled and we always have a moving target to help our patients. Respect
Dr. Bowden (@MaryBowdenMD) entered the @DRsLoungePod to talk about her battle with local hospitals and the Texas Medical Board.
The health systems operate like a mafia because there are virtually no levers physicians have to deploy on their behalf.
You have to be willing to lose it all (your ability to practice medicine) unless you back down, pay the fine, agree to “retraining” and walk away with your tail between your legs.
Keep your head down, don’t say anything, and return to your comfortable life is the motto of most physicians.
To the physicians that tut tut about “that’s not how it’s done” - emergency privileges were being granted across the country to any MD with a pulse (research general cardiologist went to NYC to manage vented COVID pneumonia patients) .. and doctors with the accepted social causes routinely criticize health systems publicly.
Dr. Bowden was targeted because she was trying to prescribe a relatively benign medication that was not approved by the establishment. She also opposed vaccine mandates at a time that was incredibly unpopular.
I guarantee you a research cardiologist who hasn’t managed a vent since training is far more dangerous to a vented Covid pneumonia patient than ivermectin. Disagreements about works/doesnt work happen all the time. We should give very wide latitude to physicians to practice as they choose. The medical boards exist to protect their patients from doctors that want to administer cyanide or amputate the healthy limbs of children.. and they do a horrid job of that - focusing on the specifics of ivermectin and privileges (that she believed she had been granted) is completely missing the point.
Bravo to Dr. Bowden for fighting when everyone else wilts away.
5 years ago it was just me and my office manager with a big vision. 2 weeks in our receptionist quit on Super Bowl Sunday and I was greeting patients at the door myself 😂 But here we are - FIVE YEARS of >@SpineMedLI! Celebrated last week with the amazing people who made it all possible. Grateful doesn’t cover it. 🙏🎉
This new New York Health Commissioner - Seem like all New Yorkers will get a fair shake from him?