20 Attorneys General To Investigate Pediatrician Group For False Claims About Transing Children
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) relied on leftist politics that contradict medical research to create its highly influential clinical recommendations for giving gender-confused children opposite-sex hormones and surgeries, say 20 state attorneys general in a letter released this morning. In so doing, the AGs say, the AAP may have violated state consumer protection laws that require accuracy in selling products and services.
“[W]hen it comes to treating children diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the AAP has abandoned its commitment to sound medical judgment,” write the attorneys general plus the Senate president and House speaker of Arizona’s legislature to the current and incoming AAP presidents.
The AAP claims in a 2018 policy statement that using puberty-blocking drugs to treat children with gender dysphoria is “reversible.” That “is misleading and deceptive,” the legal officials state. “It is beyond medical debate that puberty blockers are not fully reversible but instead come with serious long-term consequences.” The letter says this AAP claim of transgender intervention reversibility “requires immediate retraction and correction.”
Reached for comment Tuesday morning, AAP spokeswoman Lisa Robinson said she hadn’t seen the letter yet. The letter cites an April 2024 comprehensive research review commissioned by the United Kingdom’s health service, known as the “Cass report.” It found the irreversible negative consequences of puberty-blocking drugs can include:
- interfering with brain development
- compromising healthy bone density
- damages to metabolic health, or the body’s ability to use energy efficiently, leading to weight gain, weight loss, and other health problems
- loss of normal experiences of puberty.
The attorneys general say AAP relied on politics rather than medicine in making its transgender recommendations for children, by largely copying the medical recommendations of an activist organization called the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
Earlier this year, investigative reporters Michael Shellenberger and Mia Hughes published the “WPATH Files” that show many of the organization’s claims were backed by nothing but ideology, and its members privately acknowledged that. The internal communications from WPATH showed its members “frequently discuss improvising treatments as they go along” and they’re aware neither the parents nor the children they treat are often properly informed of the risks of transgender procedures, which can include fertility loss, lifelong weeping from open wounds, and more.
“These internal communications reveal that WPATH advocates for many arbitrary medical practices, including hormonal and surgical experimentation on minors and vulnerable adults,” says a report organizing the WPATH disclosures. “Its approach to medicine is consumer-driven and pseudoscientific, and its members appear to be engaged in political activism, not science.”
The WPATH Files also showed, as The New York Times reported, that a top Biden administration health official, the transgender man Rachel Levine, successfully pressured WPATH to erase age limit recommendations for these risky procedures. Some doctors have carried double mastectomies out on girls as young as 12.
The AAP has publicly declared it relies on WPATH’s “standards of care” for kids with gender dysphoria in making its medical recommendations that thousands of doctors follow across the United States. The Biden Department of Justice cites both WPATH and the WPATH-relying AAP as medical authorities in its legal efforts to force states to allow transgender interventions on children.
Several studies have shown that the majority of children experiencing gender dysphoria naturally accept their sex after puberty, especially if they have not undergone transgender treatments.
The attorneys general indicate they may be preparing legal action against AAP under state consumer protection laws that penalize false statements about products and services. As an intermediate investigatory step, the legal officers request that AAP provide written responses to 14 questions that include:
- “Provide substantiation for the AAP’s claims that the 2018 AAP policy statement and subsequent reaffirmation are ‘evidence driven, nonpartisan and rigorously reviewed’ and ‘reflect the latest evidence in the field.’”
- “Provide substantiation for the AAP’s claims that puberty blockers are reversible when used to treat adolescents suffering from gender dysphoria.”
- “Provide a copy of all communications the AAP has had regarding the 2018 AAP policy statement, transgender care, WPATH, SOC8, cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, or any related topic with any member or representative of the Biden Administration, including but not limited to communications with Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel Levine, Sarah Boateng, or any other member of Sec. Levine’s staff.”
Read the entire letter below.
9–24-24 AAP letter by The Federalist on Scribd
