MANCHESTER, NH – Nine days before Dr. David Vargas-Lowy was criminally charged with sexually assaulting a teenage girl during an office visit last year, the New Hampshire Board of Medicine (BOM) lifted a temporary suspension of his medical license in connection with the same incident.
On Dec. 8, 2025, his license was reinstated after Administrative Law Judge Shane D. Goulet of the state Office of Professional Licensure Certification (OPLC) ruled BOM counsel did not prove its case by a preponderance of the evidence.
On Jan. 2, 2026, however, the board again temporarily suspended his medical license, not for the criminal case, but in connection with complaints filed by other people.
The latest suspension is the third time since 2020 that Vargas-Lowy has had his medical license temporarily suspended. The other two times, the board ruled in his favor and his license was reinstated.
The latest allegations resulting in his license being temporarily suspended include he performed medically unnecessary massages on a child; requested a mother of a patient show him her birthmark located in a private area, and sent inappropriate and sexually explicit text messages to a patient from his personal cell phone.
One woman alleged that during an examination Vargas-Lowy pulled the top of her shirt down to check her heart, and in a second visit, he allegedly pressed his erect penis against her bare legs. The woman filed a complaint with Goffstown police.
Another patient, a minor who went to Lowy for treatment of migraines, alleged he put his hand “underneath {her} pants and over her underwear by her pubic region,” according to the order of emergency suspension.
The dates on which these alleged acts took place are not listed in the BOM’s Order of Emergency Suspension dated Jan. 2, 2026.
Manchester Ink Link reached out to Kyle Robidas, Vargas-Lowy’s criminal defense attorney, for comment but received no response.
A lost 2022 complaint
A woman, who spoke with Manchester Ink Link and asked her name not be divulged in order to protect her daughter, is furious with the state.
She said in February 2024, she filed a complaint with BOM concerning an incident involving her then 7-year-old daughter and Vargas-Lowy during an appointment in 2022. Her complaint went nowhere.
When he was arrested, she called OPLC and asked what happened to her complaint. She was sent a pre-written response (a letter dated April 21, 2025) in which it was explained OPLC had “begun taking steps to address a backlog of complaints that accumulated due to various factors including a failed data transfer.”
OPLC, she said, lost her complaint.
“I am furious at the state and failed oversight,” she said. “The complete failure of oversight is beyond shocking.”
Since then, the woman has spoken to an investigator about what happened to her daughter.
“During an appointment, Dr. Lowy directed my ex-husband and me out of the exam room after my daughter would not ‘comply’ with him,” she said. When her daughter came out 10–15 minutes later, “she was nearly hysterical, hyperventilating, and struggled to communicate. I immediately withdrew consent and did not allow her to return to his office.”
In November 2022, the mother discovered Vargas-Lowy’s original 2020 emergency suspension records, in connection with another incident involving a girl.
She shared them with her ex-husband.
“After that, Dr. Lowy met privately with him and then emailed me claiming that he had been “exonerated” of those allegations,” she said. “He also wrote a letter for my ex-husband discrediting my daughter’s autism diagnosis, recommending against school services, and attributing her needs to our divorce rather than her disability.’
She said her daughter remains fearful when she hears Dr. Vargas-Lowy’s name or believes she might be required to return to his office.
After news of his arrest circulated recently, the mother said her daughter “disclosed additional details about that 2022 visit, which I reported to law enforcement. I have since been in contact with the assigned detective.”
She is angry that Vargas-Lowy was allowed to practice medicine when there were so many complaints filed against him prior to the 2025 alleged incident.
“It just blows my mind it just keeps happening,” she said. How many complaints alleging sexual abuse of a minor have to be filed in order to suspend someone’s medical license?, she asked.
The first license suspension
On Nov. 25, 2020, BOM received a written complaint from Dr. Amanda Brownell, a child abuse pediatrician at the Spurwink Center for Safe and Healthy Families in South Portland, Maine.
She wrote that a juvenile female she examined told her she had two appointments with Vargas-Lowy related to a seizure disorder and that Vargas-Lowy allegedly sexually assaulted her during both appointments, one in October 2019 and the other in late October/early November 2020 in his Manchester office. In the 2019 incident, the girl alleged Vargas-Lowy “moved his ungloved hand under her underwear and touched her genitals.”
She alleged that during the 2020 appointment, he removed her left breast from her bra in order to listen to her “left ventricle.” The girl told the doctor her father had been present in the exam room but that Vargas-Lowy asked him to step out. Once she was alone with him, she alleged Vargas-Lowy told her that she could call him any time to talk about sexual things.
Vargas-Lowy’s license was temporarily suspended on an emergency basis but was reinstated in December 2020 after a hearing and BOM ruled based on the evidence presented that he did not present an imminent danger to the life or health of his patients.
The 2025 criminal complaint
Vargas-Lowy, a solo practitioner with an office at 1802 Elm St, Unit 8, and who also had an office in Boston, was arrested on Dec. 17 and charged with felonious sexual assault and falsifying physical evidence. He is accused of touching the breast of a girl during a July 21, 2025 office visit.
After his arrest, Vargas-Lowy was held in the Valley Street jail until Dec. 29, 2025 when he was released on bail. One condition of his release is that he is not to practice medicine. His license, however, remained active and unrestricted until the BOM on Jan. 2, 2026 suspended it again.
Originally, on Nov. 25, 2025, BOM ordered the emergency suspension of Vargas-Lowy’s medical license, pending a subsequent hearing on the July 21, 2025 assault accusation.
Vargas-Lowy is a pediatric neurologist who has operated a solo practice in Manchester since 2021. He advertises he practices in “child neurology” as well as telehealth medicine “worldwide.”
On Sept. 19, 2025, OPLC Division of Enforcement received a complaint from Manchester police alleging Lowy had engaged in inappropriate sexual contact with a 17-year-old girl.
The complaint said, “the victim in this case has disclosed that Dr. Vargas-Lowy had her lift her shirt and bra and remove her breast from her bra for auscultation with his stethoscope. The patient stated that Dr. Vargas-Lowy then touched her breast while auscultating. This patient, a juvenile, was alone in the room with him during the exam. The victim also disclosed that Dr. Vargas-Lowy told her multiple times during the exam how pretty she was, and that he was distracted because she is so pretty.”
On Nov. 13, 2025, OPLC received a second complaint about the same incident from the teen’s pediatrician. The teen had told the doctor what happened, that Lowy touched her breast and that she felt very uncomfortable.
At a Dec. 3, 2025 BOM hearing, a nurse testified about her conversation with the teen, who said she was alone in the examination room. The teen, the nurse said, told her that during the appointment Vargas-Lowy said he wanted to listen to her heart and asked her to pull her shirt up. He then asked her to “pull her bra over.” The nurse asked if “put her bra over” meant that she pulled her bra over to the side or if it meant that she took her breast out of her bra. The teen said Vargas-Lowy took her breast out of her bra and that he touched her breast with his hand. Lowy, the teen told the nurse, kept saying she was pretty and that he was getting distracted because she was pretty. The nurse said as mandated reporters, she and the teen’s pediatrician, who also spoke to the patient and her mother, reported the incident to the state Division of Children, Youth and Families and to police. The nurse testified it was her understanding the teen did not want to make a formal case.
The pediatrician also testified and said she would never remove a patient’s bra, in order to listen to their heart. She said there is no clinical reason to do that.
Vargas-Lowy testified as well, saying he was extremely sorry for making the patient feel uncomfortable. He said his approach to her was not sexual, nor did it convey any sexual innuendo.
He explained the cardiac examination he performed was not just listening to the heart. He described it as a point “EKG examination” during which he used an “echo” stethoscope. He showed the board the stethoscope and described the three electrodes contained on it. Lowy said those electrodes require direct contact with a patient’s skin. He said it was a “rough” way to get an EKG reading. The exam required access to “cardinal” points, including the “apex.”
He adamantly denied taking the patient’s breast out of her bra and said he never puts his hand on a patient’s breast.
Vargas-Lowy didn’t recall referring to the patient as “pretty” but said if he did, it was most likely in the context of offering praise to the patient, in an attempt to boost self-confidence.
Administrative Law Judge Shane D. Goulet, who had issued the temporary license suspension, said in his Dec. 8, 2025 ruling he had no choice but to conclude the hearing counsel had not demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence that Vargas-Lowy posed a threat to the public health, safety or welfare. As a result, the temporary license suspension was lifted by a Dec. 14, 2025 BOM order and Vargas-Lowy continued to practice medicine.
On Dec. 17, 2025, he was arrested and jailed. When released on bail on Dec. 29, 2025, one condition was that he not practice medicine. However, his license to practice medicine in NH remained active and unrestricted.
Vargas-Lowy’s prior disciplinary history also includes a 2021 BOM letter of concern as a result of Lowy’s decision to resign from Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center while under investigation for alleged misconduct, separately for an incident where there was “perceived invasion of (a patient’s mother’s) personal space by Lowy,” according to BOM documents.
Vargas-Lowy holds licenses in New York, Maine and Massachusetts as well as New Hampshire, according to a Dec. 8, 2025 board ruling lifting the initial license suspension in November 2025. On Dec. 2, 2025, he voluntarily agreed not to practice medicine in Massachusetts. He would have to petition the Mass. board in order to have it reinstated, a spokesperson said.
Latest complaints
On Dec. 4, 2025, the OPLC Division of Enforcement opened an investigation after Manchester police notified them of a complaint alleging Lowy sent inappropriate text messages to the mother of his minor patient outside his office and performing medically unnecessary “massages” on the minor patient during appointments without documenting the massages in the medical records.
The complainant provided investigators with a text message from Lowy dated May 12, 2025, that stated, “Is [minor patient] okay? Looked like he got mad at me for the deep tissue massage.”
Investigators spoke with the child’s mother on Dec. 10, 2025. She confirmed the information in the complaint. She also said that Lowy once asked her to show him what she described as a “private area” to see a birthmark. There was no medical necessity for the request as Lowy was not treating her. She said he made inappropriate comments regarding her appearance continuously throughout multiple medical appointments for her son, including a comment where he encouraged her to approach him next time she saw him at their shared gym.
On Dec. 16, 2025, another adult patient filed a complaint with OPLC. The woman said Lowy engaged in boundary issues when he sent inappropriate and sexually explicit text messages to her from his personal cell phone attempting to solicit her to engage in a sexual relationship. She provided 232 pages of text messages between Vargas-Lowy and her that were sent between 10/27/25 and 12/17/25, the day he was arrested.
In one instance, Vargas-Lowy sent her a picture of himself, nude from the waist up sitting in a bathtub with the message that there was “room for two” in the bathtub.
He also texted the patient, “I also felt that magnetism when we met and during our second visit, “Oh My Oh MY I like that cleavage,” “I need to see those boobies of yours,” “Are you good in bed?” “Can you tell I’m sex deprived?” “Would you consider to suggest {to the patient’s husband} an open relationship kind of situation,” “I’m even open to a friend with benefits until I find my “half orange” like they say in Spain.” When the woman’s husband discovered the text messages, she ended their communications.
Another investigation was opened on Dec. 21, 2025 when another woman filed a complaint. She told investigators she twice went to see Vargas-Lowy for “trigeminal neuralgia” symptoms. During both instances, she said Lowy leaned against her legs, which were hanging off the exam table, and that at that time “she felt his erection press against her bare legs as she was wearing shorts, according to the order of emergency suspension issued Jan. 2, 2026 by Administrative Law Judge Shane D. Goulet.
During the second instance, the woman said Lowy told her he wanted to “check her heart.” She told investigators Lowy “unbuttoned my shirt for me, even though I said I could” and “he pulled the top of my shirt down to check my heart rate.”
She filed a complaint with Goffstown police and provided the investigators with a copy of the police report. In it, Detective Leandra Paterson said the woman was “shaking profusely and tearing up.”
On Dec. 22, 2025, another investigation was opened after another patient told investigators that as a minor she went to see Vargas-Lowy for treatment of migraines. He instructed her to lay down on an exam table and he then put his hand “under (her) pants and over her underwear by her pubic region.” She said Lowy didn’t explain why he was doing this and she felt uncomfortable.
BOM issued the Jan. 2, 2026 Order of Emergency Suspension based on a “determination that there is a reasonable basis to believe that public health, safety, welfare requires emergency action.”