patrick.net

Haim decided to tell the media what was happening at his hospital. He knew taking a public stance on such a divisive issue could undermine his medical career before it really started, so he was determined to remain anonymous. He told me he didn’t present his findings to hospital administrators because it was obvious to him that what was happening had the approval of higher-ups.

Eventually, Haim contacted Christopher Rufo, the conservative activist and journalist. Rufo published a story in May 2023, not naming Haim, but calling him a “whistleblower” at Texas Children’s. It was illustrated with heavily redacted versions of the patients’ records. (Shortly after, the Texas legislature voted to pass its law banning transition treatments for minors.)

Haim felt he’d done his part to alert the public and Texas officials about what was going on while protecting himself and his family from the consequences of speaking out.

The records Haim disclosed include the ages of patients, some as young as 11 and 12. They also include their diagnoses and brief treatment summaries—most were getting puberty blockers inserted. To conceal the patients’ identities, Haim stripped out their names, birth dates, and other identifying information before sending the records to Rufo. (Haim points out the irony that in the indictment against him, the initials of several patients are listed, which means the government published more identifying information than he did.)

The Biden Administration’s Prosecution of Dr. Eithan Haim
Dr. Eithan Haim. (Mark Felix for The Free Press)
Rufo’s article did include the names of doctors performing the procedures. One was a surgeon Haim had worked with and considers brilliant. Why not black out their names, too? “If you can’t defend what you’re doing to children behind closed doors, then you have no business doing it,” Haim says. “There’s nothing that a doctor does in a hospital that they should not be willing to defend publicly.” Plus, it’s unclear how listing the names of doctors would be a violation of privacy laws. As Robert Field, a professor of law, health management, and policy at Drexel University, told me: “HIPAA is meant to protect patients, not providers.”

https://t.co/wRrb7meyLY

https://x.com/AndreaCohenHaim/status/1866136489119416715