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US plastic surgeons’ group challenges ‘consensus’ on ‘gender transitions’ for minors

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6 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Alliance Defending Freedom

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons argued that ‘genital surgical interventions’ have not been proven an effective solution to adolescent gender dysphoria, adding that current ‘research’ backing medical intervention is of ‘low quality/low certainty.’

One of the most effective weapons that proponents of radical gender ideology have wielded in support of their cause has been “consensus.”

When pressed to explain how blocking a young boy’s puberty or removing a teenage girl’s healthy breasts provide any medical or mental benefit, they often cite “experts” or refer to a “consensus” of medical organizations and government agencies.

But there’s a problem with that strategy.

Recent research has shown the glaring flaws in the argument that transition drugs and procedures are appropriate or helpful for minors. European countries that had once embraced “gender affirming care” for minors, including the U.K., have begun to reverse these policies.

While American medical organizations and governments have been slow to respond, recent developments indicate that may be changing.

Earlier this year, City Journal reported that the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) had not signed on to “any organization’s practice recommendations for the treatment of adolescents with gender dysphoria.”

ASPS added that there is “considerable uncertainty as to the long-term efficacy for the use of chest and genital surgical interventions” and that “the existing evidence base is viewed as low quality/low certainty.”

More recently, the president of that organization, Dr. Steven Williams, told a local media outlet, “I don’t perform gender-affirming care in adolescents, and the reason why is because I don’t think the data supports it.”

Prominent plastic surgeon Dr. Sheila Nazarian echoed that sentiment. “I think some physicians and some medical associations have been overtaken by a vocal minority and they are politicized,” she said. “This is 100 percent an American political issue. If we look at Europe, very progressive governments have backed off of these procedures in minors because they’re just analyzing the data – as we should with every procedure. Why is it that for this procedure, in this patient population, we just have to shut up?”

In addition, whistleblowers have come forward to reveal the damage being done to children. Evidence now shows that the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) has exerted pressure on researchers. In fact, leaked files from WPATH show that some doctors understood many of the concerns about pushing such drugs and procedures on minors – but did so anyway.

landmark review of the available research on the effect of these drugs and procedures by Dr. Hilary Cass “demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices.”

The Cass review, commissioned by the U.K. National Health Service, noted that “[t]he strengths and weaknesses of the evidence base on the care of children and young people are often misrepresented and overstated, both in scientific publications and social debate.”

In short, the “consensus” that our media, doctors, activists, and politicians rely upon is no consensus at all. It’s based not on proven science but on a commitment to ideology.

These cracks in the façade that advocates of gender ideology use as a shield provide hope to those who have long been advocating for the truth – in the courtroom and in the culture:

  • The truth that no amount of cross-sex hormones or permanently damaging surgery can change a person’s sex.
  • The truth that doctors have a duty to “do no harm,” and that includes being honest with patients about the facts regarding procedures that are mischaracterized as “gender affirming.”

It’s heartening to see prominent doctors from at least one major medical association speak the truth about the harm being done to so many children.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s election, we are hopeful that the new administration will follow through on promises to protect boys and girls from gender ideology.

And the issue of gender transition efforts for children has reached the U.S. Supreme Court too. On December 4, the court heard arguments in United States of America v. Skrmetti, in which the state of Tennessee is defending its law protecting children from these harmful and unnecessary procedures.

But we know that regardless of what happens in Washington, D.C., we will continue to face challenges in statehouses, government agencies, and school districts across the country.

The fight for truth isn’t over yet – but this is a big step toward achieving a lasting victory.

Reprinted with permission from the Alliance Defending Freedom.

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COVID-19

Trump’s new NIH head fires top Fauci allies and COVID shot promoters, including Fauci’s wife

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From LifeSiteNews

By Doug Mainwaring

“During the pandemic Fauci’s bioethicist wife, Christine Grady, offered nurses a choice: Get vaccinated, or lose your job,” noted The COVID-19 History Project on X. “Yesterday, she was offered a choice: Transfer to an office in Alaska, or lose your job. What’s fair is fair. Everyone deserves a choice,” explained the COVID watchdog account.

On day one of his new job as head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Jay Bhattacharya removed four powerful agency heads, including Dr. Anthony Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady, and others associated with the questionable handling of the COVID-19 shots.

Grady, who had served as chief of the agency’s Department of Bioethics, and other longtime Fauci allies in top posts at the NIH involved in the development and distribution of the untested COVID shots produced by Big Pharma were offered jobs in Alaska and other remote locales far away from the NIH’s sprawling Bethesda, Maryland, complex just outside Washington, D.C.

The purge came amid massive layoffs in health-related agencies under the umbrella of Health and Human Services (HHS), now headed by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement’s founder, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long questioned vaccine safety and American medicine’s focus on treating disease rather than preventing it.

A total of about 20,000 personnel – mostly bureaucrats – or about 25 percent of the HHS workforce have been or will be handed pink slips amid Kennedy’s realignment of the agency.

MAHA critics were quick to call Tuesday’s axing of Fauci confederates as “one of the darkest days in modern scientific history” fueled by Kennedy’s desire to exact revenge on Fauci’s former trusted associates who represent the antithesis of the MAHA movement.

However, the revamping of the federal government’s side of the health industry is no more harsh than the treatment meted out by those formerly in control who, at best, suppressed, and worst, punished those who questioned their iron grip on health-industry regulations and standards.

For years, Kennedy’s critics have dismissed his quest to revamp healthcare and his questioning of the efficacy of the COVID-19 mRNA jabs as anti-science, labeling him as an “anti-vaxxer” in order to suppress his messaging.

Dr. Francis Collins – whom Bhattacharya replaced as head of NIH – in an October 2020 email to Fauci condemned Bhattacharya as a “fringe epidemiologist” because he had co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which criticized harmful COVID lockdown policies.

“During the pandemic Fauci’s bioethicist wife, Christine Grady, offered nurses a choice: Get vaccinated, or lose your job,” noted The COVID-19 History Project on X.

“Yesterday, she was offered a choice: Transfer to an office in Alaska, or lose your job. What’s fair is fair. Everyone deserves a choice,” explained the COVID watchdog account.

“We spend 4X more than Italy on healthcare — and live 7 years less. Dead last in cancer rates. This isn’t science — it’s a system profiting off sick kids,” explained Calley Means, RFK Jr. HHS advisor during an interview with Laura Ingraham following the NIH firings.

“Firing the people who oversaw this? That’s step one,” declared Means.

Other NIH officials who were offered reassignments were Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who succeeded Fauci as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Clifford Lane, a close Fauci ally who served as deputy director for clinical research at NIAID, and Dr. Emily Erbelding, NIAID’s microbiology and infectious diseases director.

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Courageous Discourse

Europe Had 127,350 Cases of Measles in 2024

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By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

US Mainstream Media Maintains Myopic Focus on Less than 1000 Cases

As the measles story in the US continues to unfold with reporting of a few cases here and there come in through mainstream media, I wondered about measles in Europe.

The WHO casually reported that the Europe Region had 127,350 cases in 2024.

According to an analysis by WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 127 350 measles cases were reported in the European Region for 2024, double the number of cases reported for 2023 and the highest number since 1997.

Children under 5 accounted for more than 40% of reported cases in the Region – comprising 53 countries in Europe and central Asia. More than half of the reported cases required hospitalization. A total of 38 deaths have been reported, based on preliminary data received as of 6 March 2025.

Measles cases in the Region have generally been declining since 1997, when some 216 000 were reported, reaching a low of 4440 cases in 2016. However, a resurgence was seen in 2018 and 2019 – with 89 000 and 106 000 cases reported for the 2 years respectively. Following a backsliding in immunization coverage during the COVID-19 pandemic, cases rose significantly again in 2023 and 2024. Vaccination rates in many countries are yet to return to pre-pandemic levels, increasing the risk of outbreaks.

Many regions in Europe have lower rates of measles vaccination than the goal of 95%.

 

Less than 80% of eligible children in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Romania were vaccinated with MCV1 in 2023 – far below the 95% coverage rate required to retain herd immunity. In both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro the coverage rate for MCV1 has remained below 70% and 50% respectively for the past 5 or more years. Romania reported the highest number of cases in the Region for 2024, with 30 692 cases, followed by Kazakhstan with 28 147 cases.

The WHO Report does not mention adjudication of hospitalizations or deaths. Presumably hospitalization of healthy kids is routine for contagion control. So if measles is so common and presumably well-handled by Europe, why is it such a big deal in the United States? Don’t look for Sanjay Gupta or Anderson Cooper to tell you that a similar size region and population handles >100K cases per year without much fanfare.

Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

President, McCullough Foundation

www.mcculloughfnd.org

 

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