Republican gubernatorial candidate Dr. Scott Jensen is on the receiving end of Democratic criticism after calling for reforms to the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice, which is currently investigating Jensen’s medical license over his treatment of COVID patients with ivermectin.
According to audio from a Monday meet-and-greet obtained by MPR News, the family physician again expressed his longstanding desire to reform the Board of Medical Practice, implying he would replace its current members if elected governor.
The board’s current investigation into Jensen’s medical license is its fifth overall. In January he was forced to turn over redacted records for the last few COVID patients he treated with ivermectin.
“When they came after me the fifth time, I said, ‘Is this ever going to stop?’ And I almost quit caring. I did my responses, but I said, ‘I will beat you,'” Jensen said. “And right now, I’m in the ninth month of my fifth investigation, and they’re not coming back at me, and I think the reason is they don’t know what to do with me. I wouldn’t know what to do with me.
“If I get elected in November, do you think their jobs are secure? I get to appoint them. We’ll have picks. I promise you guys, we’ll take care of that juggernaut,” he added.
The use of ivermectin had once been a highly contentious and politicized issue during the height of the COVID pandemic, as Democrats tended to dismiss the drug out of hand as “ineffective,” or at least claimed there was no “scientific proof” it successfully treated COVID.
On Friday, Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party Chair Ken Martin blasted Jensen’s remarks as “despicable” and “disqualifying.”
“Anyone who repeatedly promises to use the governor’s office to jail or fire their personal enemies is unfit for public service,” Martin thundered in a statement. “The doctors who serve on the board investigating Scott Jensen are not anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, which is what makes them different from him. Scott Jensen’s extremism and disturbing enthusiasm for political retaliation don’t belong anywhere near the governor’s office.”
Jensen addressed his meet-and-greet remarks in a video posted to Twitter Thursday evening. He asserted that the Board of Medical Practice cannot be “weaponized” to “constrain … the practice of medicine between patients and doctors.”
“If you look up ‘juggernaut,’ you are talking about a massive, inexorable force. And that’s what the Board of Medical Practice is for physicians,” he said. “This is crippling to a physician, to be under investigation. Add on to it that I have had a wonderful career … and for the last two years, I have been forced to live under the cloud of a constant investigation.”
“And I have not heard one word in the last 100 to 150 days. Is this intentional? Is this political? I understand the board is being weaponized, but I think the board owes me some dignity and courtesy,” Jensen added.
Evan Stambaugh
Evan Stambaugh is a freelance writer who had previously been a sports blogger. He has a BA in theology and an MA in philosophy.
