A state medical board in Maine has suspended the license of an MIT-educated doctor and has ordered for a psychiatric evaluation on accusations that she used ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to treat some of her patients and spreading misinformation about Covid-19. The Maine's Board of Licensure in Medicine suspended the license of Dr. Meryl Nass, from Ellsworth last week for 30 days.
During the investigation, Nass also admitted to lying to a pharmacist to obtain the drug hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19 patients. Nass, 70, is an internist who is active in Children's Health Defense, a group that agitates against vaccines and vaccine mandates, since at least 1997.
Unethical Practice
According to a suspension letter issued by the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine, Nass time and again lied to pharmacists to obtain hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid patients. The 30-day suspension letter issued on January 12 mentions that allowing Nass to continue practicing medicine "constitutes an immediate jeopardy to the health and physical safety of the public who might receive her medical services."
Before issuing the suspension letter, the board also voted for further investigation, a hearing, and a psychological evaluation of Nass.
"The information received by the Board demonstrates that Dr. Nass is or may be unable to practice medicine with reasonable skill and safety to her patients by reason of mental illness, alcohol intemperance, excessive use of drugs, narcotics, or as a result of a mental or physical condition interfering with the competent practice of medicine," the order read.
State documents also allege that Nass lied and said that a patient had Lyme disease when he did not in order to get that patient a prescription of hydroxychloroquine for Covid. Nass now becomes the second doctor in the state to be investigated for allegedly spreading misinformation about Covid.
The decision comes after the medical board received at least two complaints that Nass was spreading misinformation about the virus on her blog and on Twitter. So, Nass has been suspended on two grounds — for spreading misinformation about Covid and treating patients with hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.
Ivermectin is an anti-parasite drug used predominantly on animals. She also treated patients with hydroxychloroquine, even although the Food and Drug Administrator had revoked an emergency use authorization for the malaria drug because it may not be effective against the coronovirus.
Anti-Vaxxer Doctor
A second complaint against Nass was recorded on December 19, 2021, when a doctor informed the Maine board that she had diagnosed an unvaccinated patient with Covid over the phone and prescribed to him five days of Ivermectin.
The decision was highly risky as the diagnosis was done over phone. The patient's son later texted Nass that his father was "borderline delirious." "He moans on every exhale and he says snippers of things that don't make sense at all," [sic] read the text, which was quoted in Ness' suspension order. Later he texted that his parents were "not doing well at all."
Besides, Nass is an anti-vaxxer and had been spreading misinformation about Covid. The state documents state that Nass has indicated she "did not intend to comply with masking and vaccine orders," that the federal government "won't let us find out" how many people are immune from less severe or asymptomatic cases," and that the government is keeping important information about Covid immunity from the public.
The order stated Nass claimed the vaccine effort was "nefarious," connected it to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and suggested that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is "a criminal agency."
Complaints about Nass kept coming. On New Year's Eve, the board received a report from a certified midwife nurse, who informed its members that one of her pregnant patients contracted COVID earlier last year and had been prescribed hydroxychloroquine by Nass.
Nass is the second doctor whose license has been suspended in Maine. In December, the state Board of Osteopathic Licensure "emergently suspended" the license of Dr. Paul Gosselin, who practices in Waterville, because he had signed Covid "exemption letters" and been the subject of complaints from providers that he was spreading misinformation about Covid.
