Medical watchdog urges Congress to protect children from transgender procedures

By Tate Rosentreter
The Center Square

Medical watchdog Do No Harm is urging Congress to “codify safeguards” to protect children from transgender ideology after a member of the group testified Wednesday before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) about medical organizations that promote transgender procedures for minors despite “significant harms.”

After testifying, Do No Harm’s chief medical officer Dr. Kurt Miceli told The Center Square: “For too long, many major medical organizations have endorsed pediatric medical transition despite systematic reviews finding very low certainty evidence of benefit in the setting of significant harms.”

“Indeed, the risks are great, and the consequences irreversible and lifelong in many cases,” Miceli said.

“It is time for these medical societies – including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, and the American Medical Association – to re-evaluate their radical position statements and guidelines impacting children, especially in light of the evidence and the physician’s ethical duty to first, do no harm,” Miceli said.

Neither the American Academy of Pediatrics, nor the Endocrine Society, nor the American Medical Association have responded to The Center Square’s request for comment.

Miceli told The Center Square that “children and their families deserve better from the physicians and organizations they are meant to trust.”

“We must stop these harmful interventions on minors,” Miceli said. “I urge Congress to restore integrity within the medical profession and codify safeguards for children struggling with gender dysphoria.”

The HELP Committee has not yet responded to The Center Square’s request for comment.

At his testimony Wednesday, Miceli said a national law banning gender transitions for minors is “urgent.”

Miceli stated it is “horrific” that medical societies have not recognized “the need to look at the evidence and to come to this conclusion itself.

“Our medical societies” are “captured by an elite group that is pushing a message from WPATH which is completely bankrupt in terms of its issuance of guidelines related to the care of kids,” Miceli said.

“If we as the medical profession can’t govern ourselves appropriately, we need to make sure that kids are ultimately protected,” Miceli said.

Do No Harm has worked extensively to expose the danger that transgender treatments pose to children.

Last year, Kurt Miceli authored a report for Do No Harm calling for an end to gender-affirming care for minors, arguing that the procedures are “harmful and permanent,” The Center Square reported.

Do No Harm’s report listed infertility, sexual dysfunction, and cardiovascular disease as a few of the health risks caused by pediatric gender transitions, not to mention the psychological effects.

Less than a month ago, parental rights group the American Parents Coalition called on Congress to review the American Academy of Pediatrics’ federal funding, “alleging that the organization prioritizes politics and gender ideology before children’s health while using tax dollars,” The Center Square reported.