The Ohio State Board of Medicine is threatening to limit, suspend or even permanently revoke the medical license of Sherry Tenpenny, the controversial anti-vaccine doctor who made headlines last year by falsely testifying to state lawmakers that COVID-19 vaccinations make people magnetic… ok with the perpetuation of other nonsensical vaccine conspiracy theories.
“I’m sure you’ve seen the pictures on the internet of people who got these pictures and now they’re magnetized,” Tenpenny said in his viral testimony. “You can put a key on their forehead—it sticks. You can put spoons and forks anywhere and they can stick because now we think there’s a metal piece to that.”
She went on to suggest that there could be an “interface – yet to be defined” between life-saving vaccine components and “all 5G towers”. She added that the link “hasn’t been proven yet” but that “we’re trying to find out [it] out.”
That strange testimony was given on June 8, 2021. About a month later, on July 14, a state medical board investigator showed up at Tenpenny’s medical office wanting to ask her some questions, according to letter from the state medical boardwhich is dated September 14, 2022.
The medical board has not disclosed what the investigator wanted to ask Tenpenny or why she was being investigated. However, it’s hard to imagine that magnetism won’t come up in conversation.
However, that conversation never took place, as indicated in the September letter from the medical board. Tenpenny was not in his office when the investigator showed up and did not respond to his request for follow-up or a follow-up email. But the board’s investigation continued, and on September 7, 2021, the board sent Tenpenny a certified letter containing written questions. Her attorney sent a letter back to the board later that month, saying Tenpenny “does not believe the board has a legal basis” to send the questions and would refuse to answer all of them.
Clear warning
In October, the board tried again, issuing a subpoena for Tenpenny to appear at the November 3 inquiry. Tenpenny was not present. Finally, in June of this year, the board tried again to summon Tenpenny for an “investigative office conference,” but she responded that she did not believe the investigation had “legal basis” and did not show up.
Regardless of the subject matter or findings of the investigation, the board determined that Tenpenny’s refusal to cooperate with the investigation constituted serious misconduct in and of itself. As such, they informed her that her license was now at stake. The board could issue a reprimand or probation, or could limit or revoke her license, which was renewed last September during the investigation.
Tenpenny has the opportunity to request a hearing which she reportedly has, although a hearing date has not yet been set. However, the board appeared to include a sharp caveat about the hearing request in its letter, writing:
Please note that whether or not you request a hearing, Ohio Rev. Code Section 4731.22(L) provides that “[w]where the board refuses to grant or issue a license or certificate to practice to an applicant, [or] revokes a person’s license or certificate to practice… the board may state that its action is permanent. A person subject to a permanent action taken by the board shall forever thereafter be ineligible to hold a license or certificate to practice…”
Whether the board will take such permanent action remains to be determined.
Since Tenpenny initially made national headlines with her claims about magnetic people, she has continued to spread anti-vaccine misinformation as well as other conspiracy theories and QIncoherent rhetoric.
The bill that Tenpenny’s nonsensical testimony supported, HB 248that would broadly ban vaccine mandates in the state remains stalled in committee.
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