A judge has allowed a doctor’s lawsuit against Maine’s medical board to continue after the Maine Board of Licensure in Medicine ordered her to undergo a psychological evaluation for spreading “misinformation.”
According to the judge, the directed psych eval for Dr. Meryl Nass was “based on no evidence of process.”
“In judicial proceedings, at a minimum probable cause findings ordinarily are required to justify pretrial impositions. In this case, as alleged, the Board dispensed with preliminary proceedings altogether,” U.S. District Judge Lance Walker wrote.
The process “lacked any safeguards to protect against agency zeal and resembled investigatory action imposed, somewhat ironically, in the absence of evidence rather than the initiation of an impartial, sober, thoughtful judicial process designed to assess the truth of facts to arrive at the existence of probable cause to justify such a sanction,” he added.
Nass wrote in a Substack post in response to the judge’s decision that she is “happy to report that I will eagerly move forward with the legal case to clear my name and defend the free speech right of medical practitioners to tell the truth to their patients, especially if it goes against government or medical orthodoxy.”
In 2024, a Washington doctor was fined and directed to undergo education courses after prescribing ivermectin for COVID-19. The doctor prescribed ivermectin to five patients without offering alternative treatments and informing them of possible risks. This included discussion of COVID-19 vaccines, the order explained, asserting that Dr. Wei-Hsung Lin engaged “below the standard of care” and acted in “unprofessional conduct.”
