Horsford asks Gibbons to remove doctor from medical board

By Cy Ryan

Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009 | 3:30 p.m.

CARSON CITY – Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford wants Dr. Benjamin Rodriguez of Las Vegas off the state Board of Medical Examiners on grounds he has been permitting a medical assistant to give improper injections for years.

Horsford, D-Las Vegas, says Dr. Rodriguez has violated the laws he is expected to enforce as a board member and his appointment should be rescinded.

He made his request in a letter to Gov. Jim Gibbons, who has not received it yet. Daniel Burns, communications director for Gibbons, said Dr. Rodriguez abstained in the vote by the medical board last week to stop doctors from permitting their assistants to give cosmetic injections, such as Botox.

Burns also said that Tony Clark, former executive director of the medical examiners board, wrote in a newsletter several years ago that it wasn’t illegal for these assistants to give these types of injections.

Horsford said more needed to be done to ensure the safety of Nevada citizens “and to restore confidence in our State’s Board of Medical Examiners.”

The governor said last week he wanted to see the “health and safety” of Nevadans protected but he didn’t want to see the emergency regulation stand in the way of citizens getting their flu shots as the season approaches.

Clark County District Judge Kathleen Delaney has issued a temporary restraining order to stop the emergency regulations from going into effect. She has set a hearing for Sept. 29 on a complaint the medical examiners board violated the state’s open meeting law when it adopted the emergency regulation that prohibited medical assistants from injecting cosmetic fillers, chemotherapy, anesthetics or inflammatory drugs.