A whistleblower who exposed the largest pediatric hospital in the U.S. for allegedly prescribing puberty blockers to minors despite claiming otherwise said he remains unafraid despite what he described as a politically motivated federal investigation against him.
"These people are corrupt," says thirty-three-year-old Dr. Eithan Haim. "And the only way to expose it is to not play into this Kabuki theater like these people are practitioners of justice. Because if we were to collude with them, we would be sanctioning our own destruction."
Be informed, not misled.
Haim, a general surgeon in the Dallas area, said he's "not at all" frightened of the consequences he might face after coming forward to journalist Christopher Rufo last year with whistleblower documents regarding Texas Children's Hospital's claim they had discontinued conducting so-called "gender-affirming services" on minors despite telling the public it had paused such procedures.
Texas Children’s Hospital – the nation’s largest pediatric hospital – has said it will no longer offer gender-affirming treatments after reviewing an order by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for state agencies to investigate such care for transgender youth as child abuse.
But they were not telling the truth. They were lying to the public.
You may recall what happened in 2022 in Texas.
Following a February 2022 formal opinion from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that labeled some sex-change procedures and puberty blockers for minors as "child abuse" under Texas law, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an order that month instructing state agencies to investigate them as such.
It was in the wake of Abbott's order that Texas Children's Hospital promised that they would be shutting down such procedures.
They said, "After assessing the Attorney General’s and Governor’s actions, Texas Children’s Hospital paused hormone-related prescription therapies for gender-affirming services. This step was taken to safeguard our healthcare professionals and impacted families from potential criminal legal ramifications."
Dr. Haim called for a moment of truth.
At first, the doctor came forward anonymously with the documents featured in a City Journal article by Christopher Rufo on May 16, 2023.
Rufo said, "Last spring, executives at Texas Children’s Hospital announced that they would cease performing transgender medical procedures on children, citing potential legal and criminal liability. The hospital’s chief pediatrician, Catherine Gordon, an advocate for 'gender-affirming therapy,' abruptly resigned."
He continued: "I have obtained exclusive whistleblower documents showing that, despite its public statements, the Houston-based children’s hospital—the largest in the United States—has secretly continued to perform transgender medical interventions, including the use of implantable puberty blockers, on minor children."
Rufo says this is Dr. Haim's claim: "According to this presentation, TCH and Baylor College of Medicine encouraged doctors to begin treatment with puberty blockers and hormones during adolescence, and then consider surgeries, including breast removal and genital reconstruction, in adulthood—though the presenters explained that some surgical procedures could be appropriate for “adolescents on [a] case-by-case basis.”
Richard Roberts, a University of Virginia-trained endocrinologist and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine who co-presented the grand rounds, is also listed in medical records as performing transgender medical procedures on minors at TCH. According to these records, Roberts has managed patients ranging in age from 12 to 17 years old for “gender identity” and “gender dysphoria,” with indications for “medication,” “testosterone levels,” “medicine refill,” and “specialty services.”
Despite the hospital’s statement that it had ceased these practices, Roberts has continued to manage a heavy caseload for “gender-affirming care,” including multiple patient visits in a single day last week for “gender dysphoria” and “gender identity,” and another for “HRT [hormone replacement therapy].”
Another doctor at Texas Children’s, a Harvard-trained surgeon and assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine named Kristy Rialon, has also been involved in conducting transgender surgical procedures on minors. The records indicate that Rialon inserted and removed “non-biodegradable drug delivery implant[s]” for “gender dysphoria in pediatric patient[s]” throughout 2022 and 2023—including one procedure on an 11-year-old “female-to-male transgender person,” listed in records for three days after the hospital had announced that it had stopped performing “gender-affirming care.”
Rufo's article published last May said, "The executives at Texas Children’s appear to be playing a duplicitous game. They announced that the hospital had stopped performing transgender medical interventions on minors, but this is simply untrue. TCH doctors administered such procedures days after the announcement, and they have continued to perform them throughout 2022 and 2023."
He added, "If gender-affirming care is truly the gold standard in medicine, TCH should defend it openly, not perform it in secret. State legislators, currently considering a bill to ban such procedures, should launch an investigation into the hospital and require those involved to account for their practices—or face severe consequences."
Telling the truth has consequences.
On June 23, 2023, weeks after Rufo's story broke, two agents with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General reportedly showed up at Haim's home on the day of his residency graduation.
He describes the experience as "terrifying" and says, "After a few minutes, you realize that this is a political investigation meant to support this evil ideology."
The agents inquired about "medical records" and informed him he was a "potential target" in an unspecified criminal investigation, according to a letter his lawyers fired off on Jan. 24 to Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Chip Roy, R-Texas.
New whistleblower info sent to me & @JudiciaryGOP re: Dr. Eitan Haim, the Tx Doctor being targeted by Biden’s DOJ for exposing Tx Children’s child sex-change program. Thank you @realchrisrufo & @TuckerCarlson for reporting on this. #WeaponizedDOJ cc: @Riley_Gaines_ @ChoooCole pic.twitter.com/Pdrd8v7qf2
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) January 24, 2024
Jordan chairs the House Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, while Roy chairs the Select Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government. Roy responded to the letter on social media, suggesting Haim was the subject of the Biden administration's "#WeaponizedDOJ."
The Christian Post has written an article on this matter. They report:
The letter to the congressmen claimed the investigation into Haim was "exceptionally fast" and predicated on evidence that had not been adequately reviewed. They also alleged the investigation emerged from the "easily disproved falsehood" that Haim violated the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) by leaking unredacted patient information.
Based on phone calls with her, Haim's lawyers also claimed that Assistant U.S. Attorney Tina Ansari, the lead DOJ prosecutor in his case, showed evidence of bias and aggressively targeted not just Haim, but his wife.
Ansari, who allegedly described trans procedures as the "last hope" for families of such children, urged Haim to admit to wrongdoing to avoid felony prosecution and claimed it was not his job to expose trans procedures at the pediatric hospital. She also allegedly used a personal cellphone to communicate with Haim's attorneys.
They also claimed that Ansari threatened Haim's wife because she advised her husband not to submit to an interview with federal agents without an attorney present. His wife has been awaiting the completion of a federal background check to become a U.S. assistant attorney herself, a fact the prosecutor allegedly attempted to weaponize.
"The prosecutor (who holds the same position) said that she and the agents would not mention Mrs. Haim's behavior to the background investigators 'unless [Mrs. Haim] becomes difficult,'" the lawyers wrote.
Haim told CP that his wife "worked her entire life to be able to be in a position where she can work for the Department of Justice, and it's a privilege for her to do that because she believes in her country and believes in justice."
"And for them to use that as a way to threaten me is despicable," he added. "It's beneath the stature of assistant U.S. attorney."
One other matter must be considered in this. In 2020, Forbes estimated the market value of transgender medical procedures to be in excess of $200 billion.
One can only imagine what it would be today.
This matter is monumental. There's much more to come.
Haim went public with his identity earlier this month, speaking to Rufo in an hour-long interview on X and appearing in outlets such as Fox News, The Daily Wire, and The Blaze. Despite the headwinds of opposition he is facing from those in power, he was adamant that he did the right thing.
In addition to his conversations with conservative media, he sat down for another interview with Rufo, this time on video and without the cover of anonymity. He hopes that sharing his story with various outlets will help people realize the severity of the harm such clinical interventions do to children's physical and mental health. Haim even used words like "evil" and "malevolent" to describe them.
"You can't believe that they're taking 11-, 12-, 13-year-old kids and starting them down this path where they're going to have to adopt an identity that's based on hatred of their true self," Haim said. "And for the rest of their life, they're going to have to be on drugs, gonna have to deal with the complications from surgery."
"And it's all based on something that's not true."
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.