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| RFK Jr., a key player in Trump's retribution tour at his HHS confirmation hearing / Wikipedia |
RFK Jr. has ordered the National Institute of Health to conduct a political hit job in the guise of a scientific study focusing on “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children and adults — a reference to gender-affirming care and surgery.
As the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) continues to defund nearly every research project on transgender health, the White House has directed the agency to focus on studying “regret” after a person transitions to align their body with their gender identity. Several NIH employees, who were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the press, confirmed the directive to the scientific publication Nature..
Two weeks ago, Matthew Memoli, who was acting NIH director at the time, sent an e-mail to the directors of several NIH institutes. It said that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is the NIH’s parent agency, “has been directed to fund research on a few specific areas” related to what it calls “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children and adults — a reference to gender-affirming care and surgery. “This is very important to the President and the Secretary” of the HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the e-mail added.
Every American Medical Association Supports Youth Gender Affirming Medical Care. Here are their statements.
Based on its priorities, the White House sometimes directs the NIH — the world’s largest public funder of biomedical science — to study certain broad topics, such as cancer or women’s health, but the latest directive’s specificity, inflammatory language and focus on a hyper-polarizing topic are unprecedented, the NIH employees say. Although the White House can sometimes “push us on various different things, we normally get to chart out the approach”, a staff member says.
Many scientists, reeling from the abrupt cancellation of more than US$180 million in NIH funding for research on transgender health, slammed the proposed studies as ideologically driven.
Studies show that youth who receive gender-affirming medications, like puberty blockers and hormones, have a lower risk of depression and suicidal thoughts. One Stanford University study found that transgender people who received hormones as teenagers had better mental health outcomes than those who received them as adults.
Another study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that transgender youth who started gender-affirming hormones reported higher life satisfaction and lower depression and anxiety after two years.
A study conducted at the Western Australian Pediatric Gender Clinic of 552 youth treated for gender dysphoria indicates that only 5% re-identified to the sex of birth.
Some studies suggest that rates of regret have declined over the years as patient selection and treatment methods have improved. In a review conducted by the NIH of 27 studies involving almost 8,000 teens and adults who had transgender surgeries, mostly in Europe, the U.S and Canada, 1% on average expressed regret. For some, regret was temporary, but a small number went on to have detransitioning or reversal surgeries, the 2021 review said.
The major American medical associations' statements remain online. So, Trump will take a different route. He apparently seeks to manufacture lies a la UK's discreited Cass Review, which was instrumental in the doubling of UK transgender suicides
Given that from day one, Trump has targeted transgender people with vile vitriol messaging, the results of these studies are a foregone conclusion.
